Photos That Get You Talking
March 23, 2021
Have you ever found an old photograph from your childhood and been completely captivated by it? You don’t remember living that moment, but you can almost feel it. The people in the photograph are both familiar and foreign at the same time. Suddenly, you find yourself flooded with more memories, and you are inspired to sit down with a parent, a grandparent, or your own children and relive those precious moments from long ago. That is the magic of photographs! They have the power to be conversation starters between generations. They capture things that are specific to individual people or moments in time while highlighting the similarities in our human experience. I treasure photos not just for the moments that they preserve, but for the connection they continue to inspire as they are shared.
As a visual storyteller, I want to make photos that will inspire future generations to gather and share stories from the past. Most likely my daughter will not remember the way she used to shave with daddy. But she will have this photograph. She’ll look at this photo and see the way daddy used to stand her on the bathroom counter, cover her face with shaving cream, and give her a plastic spoon. And that while daddy shaved his face, she would use her plastic spoon to scrape shaving cream off her little cheeks. It was funny and sweet - something normal and yet special that they did together. This photo preserves that routine, and it also inspires more conversation about childhood and time spent with daddy. It has so much meaning!
It’s important to recognize that not all photos are great conversation starters. How you go about having family photos done makes all the difference in how meaningful they will be later on. When most people think about family photos they think about something posed. You know, the kind of photos where you pick out nice outfits, carefully select a background, position everyone just the way you want them, and everyone smiles at the camera. That will make a lovely photograph to hang on your wall, just like this photo of my girls.
When I look at this photo I know that it is Christmas and that my girls are younger than they are now. I think they are adorable and that makes me smile. But that is about it. It’s not a great conversation starter. Pretty much everything I want to know about the photo I can see just by looking at it.
Now let’s look at another photo of my girls taken within the context of real life.
When I look at this photo I see a relationship between sisters, I see their silly sense of humor, and it reminds me of all the other things they do together. Looking at this photo is a completely different experience than looking at the first. I want to keep looking at it because it is more than a simple document that records their size and appearance, it’s the story of their relationship. I think having this photo will mean so much more to my daughters than having a posed portrait.
When potential clients contact me about family photos, most people think they want the posed photo, but I’d like to encourage you to try the real life option. Just try it once. And a year or two later, when you open up that album full of photos of your family, living, laughing, pouting, and screaming within the context of your real life, let me know how you feel. Let me know what your family talks about. I think the photos will be conversation starters and the conversation will be magic!