He met Himself ...

I recently spent a couple of hours photographing the family of this divine little man.

We played in the room with the most light and I took a variety of images, capturing light in ways that surprised even me.  Later we wandered outside in a cool London morning and voila, the light was so absolutely perfect.

But here, he discovers his reflection.

Portrait Photography - as it should be

A friend posted the following story on my Facebook wall yesterday. It confirmed what I have always thought about portrait photography ... the photographer oftentimes photographs the relationship between themselves and their client. 

It's about mutual trust and respect but it's also about what the subject allows to be known of themselves ... the story he or she tells, the glimpses we are allowed.  That's why I prefer to take an hour or two with a portrait session.  I love to enter an environment that makes them comfortable.  I love if we have time to chat, to get to know one another in a relaxed situation.  It doesn't take long usually.

In this experiment the photographers all captured something of the person their subject presented himself as. I thought it the perfect illustration of how portrait photography should be.


This and That & Everything!

 

If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched and tasted yesterday ...'

Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The extract was longer but perhaps this is enough to remind us to leave some time for our senses to do their work ... to smell the flowers perhaps.   There are more quotes from his book here.

These days find me rushing, like a mad woman, through life.  Cleaning, organising, packing, remembering, searching, sometimes finding. 

I am so tired I will probably sleep all the way to Italy on Wednesday.  Meanwhile the Belgian bloke is having a shoulder scan, this week I hope.  He's been in pain for far too long now and physio isn't helping at all.  It seems he has either torn a muscle or ... he needs something for inflammation of a joint somewhere in there.  We'll be so glad when he can use his arm again, and sleep without waking when he turns.

Jess has broken her finger.  Ignoring it didn't speed healing and so she's 'limping around' in terms of what she can do with that ridiculously painful middle finger.

Miss 10 has taken to lolling about and generally enjoying her summer holidays. And Sander is crossing Belgium 5 days per week for work, as usual.

I suspect, if we sat down together and talked of what we noticed yesterday, we might just be a small group of grouchy stressed people who noticed not much at all ... except Miss 10 who may have noticed things. 

I talked to my Dad this morning.  I wanted to wish him well for his hospital tests on Tuesday but, in good news really, his tests were on Monday and he had come through the actuality of them really well.  It was lovely to be talking to him as he had worried me with talk of having to go off his heart medication for the test.  He's staying at my sister's tonight.  They didn't want him to go home alone.

And so the new website needs fine-tuning.  There are emails to write and to reply to.  I'm behind on my writing course, yet again ...   I'm in and out with the laundry, packing ,and ironing while searching for some really important notes I had made.

But I did finish the family portrait series of shots I took last Sunday.  I'm so pleased with the results.  They were another really special family full of adorable little folk, as seen below.

 

On Portraiture ...

I love the work of portrait photography ...

My idea is that portrait photography is an attempt to put someone so at ease with who you are that they give you something of who they really are.

I think everybody is capable of being photographed in a way that is beautiful. 

It's about letting the real self bubble up to the surface.  It can take time but it's more than worth it in the end.