Tongue Tyed: Photography Through a Turkey Haze

Nov 30, 2004

Photography Through a Turkey Haze

This weekend something very interesting happened. Other than the two other interesting things I have already mentioned...All of the "kids" in my extended family are growing up. I have known this for a long time now, but they are all having their own kids now! Between Thursday and Friday there were 5 kids present under 4. That's a lot of little ones! And they are ALL cute! How is that possible?? What is this gene pool I have waded into? (Granted, most of the families aren't related by blood, but still!!)

I was snap happy all weekend! One child in particular was just stunning! If I get permission from her mommy, I will post a pic of her. She was only 6 months old, and Oh. My. God. SO. CUTE! But here is the best part, her mom, Amy, said the pictures I was taking were really good. She thought I should think about a side business. Taking baby pics for people at three month intervals. She thought parents would pay in the neighborhood of $2000 for a year's worth (I think we may be talking about Plano and Frisco parents, but hey, there are 300,000 people in Plano alone!!)...Did you hear that folks??? Just think...5 babies a year, 20 days out of the year, $10,000! Sounds like a good mini biz to me! So I have been thinking. A LOT. I am trying to think how I could do this uniquely. I mean anyone can go to Sears and get a portrait done, but are those really the cutest pictures? They don't show the real character of the child, ya know? So I was thinking candids. Apparently, my mother had something similar done when I was a kid. A photographer came to house and had me pose. But it was still posed. I have always loved the candid shots that are just such perfect shots to the posed ones. I was lucky to have a mother who was good with a camera. But maybe other kids aren't so lucky...enter ME!

I could probably convince (with virtually no effort) my extended family to let me photograph their kids to build a portfolio. Just throw my studio lights in their case, spend a couple hours at their houses, and in exchange for their time and a little patience, I could give them the pics for free.

The other thought I had was to give the parents the rights to the photos and a CD of them so they can do what they want with them after the initial prints. I mean, in this day and age anyone can scan a photo and crop out the name at the bottom of the print, right? So why fight it? I could just retain the right to use their photos for my portfolio.

And on top of all that, because I have no studio, I would have no overhead...wonderful!

Just wondering what you all think. Any ideas to make this work better? Any personal anecdotes about childhood photos?

posted by Ty @ 11/30/2004

2 Comments:

At 12:17 AM, December 01, 2004, Dylan said...: My mom and I took a photography class, and one of the teachers was a former portraitist. He said the most important thing was the lighting, but for starting out, outdoor pictures can't be beaten... You don't need a studio. The downside is weather is a factor, but that if you buy those light reflectors, you can bend the light in pretty much any weather but a downpour.
At 10:11 AM, December 01, 2004, Ty said...: Actually, I took a class with my mother too!! Funny! As for lighting, part of my job at work is product photography so I have access to a decent light kit. (One of the perks of working for the fam. you can borrow stuff from work no questions asked!!) Did your teacher have any other tips you remember??

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