Skip to main content

Another Fab Fine Art Shoot with Another Lovely Young Lady

I am so thrilled that more people are wanting portraits of their older children. Its quite common to have newborns and babies photographed but much less so with older children and I've never really understood why. A child reaching their teenage years is such a wonderful stage that goes equally as fast and is equally as special as the toddler stage. For me and my daughter it was the stage just prior to her becoming a young woman. It was the last time that she was my cute little girl and I'm thankful I have many photographs to remember this time. And as such, I think its a wonderful time to organise a portrait session to record this milestone in their lives.
I've been building up a collection of dresses that my clients are always welcome to use. When young girls visit my summerhouse and have a browse through the wardrobe they will always stumble across something that strikes their fancy. Some like the pretty pink dresses, some like the black lace dresses. But there is usually something they gravitate to straight away. And this gives me a good indication of what sort of person they are and an idea of the portrait I'd like to create.
This young lady was not a pink sort of girl but loved the black lace as well as some of her own clothes, which I always encourage.  A combination of my clothes and the clients clothes I feel works best. And ideally something that can show the interests a child has in his or her life. For my daughter it was dance, for boys it is often sport, another child has come in with horse riding gear and for this young lady it was her gymnastics leotard.
As a mother myself, I love seeing portraits that will not only remind us of what our children look like at this time of their life, but also the activities they participate in. What made them smile? How did they enjoy spending their time? What makes them proud? I want to capture that so when they look back on their portraits they will remember not just what they looked like but also how they felt.
As an artist getting to work with people who can take direction is a fabulous thing. When I create portraits I am doing just that, creating. I am not snapping images. I want the chance to be able to refine elements of my images so that I can possibly create the perfect portrait. I want to do this not just for my client but for myself as well. With babies this can be difficult and in some cases impossible. But with a child who wants to be there its not only easier its also quite fun. I finish a shoot, sometimes a four hour one, not tired but often elated, on a high because I am thrilled at what I created.
This session was purchased as a Christmas gift for this young girl since they knew it was the sort of thing she would love to participate in. As a child I know I would have loved it too. The chance to dress up and have so much attention placed on me would have been exciting.
And now, as a mother the chance to have special portraits of my child is just so important. I am lucky that I do this for a living so I can have special portraits of my child whenever I want. But like everyone else, I still have to save up and allocate money when I want something printed and framed. Just the other week I updated one of my frames with a recent portrait of my daughter, and much to my delight I replaced one ballet portrait with another. Its something I have been and will continue to admire for years to come. And the old one is safely stored away for me to come back to whenever I want (its also in a family photo book that I look through frequently - if you haven't gathered already, printed images matter to me and are so much nicer to look at than digital files).
I requested that Mum joined in on this shoot as well. Its something I have been almost insisting on lately as I think portraits such as these will become immensely valuable as time goes on. For those not keen, which is most to be honest, I make it as painless as possible and we take about 20 minutes at the start of the shoot with the aim of creating only a handful of really special images for them to choose from. No one has been disappointed yet and I hope I get to hear from some of these families many years from now about how much this portrait means to them.

If this is something you've been meaning to do then why not get in touch to hear more? You are welcome to come and meet with me, see the studio, our products and our wardrobe. It costs nothing for this meeting and you might end up being very glad glad you came.

So as per usual, please get in touch if you'd like to hear more. Links to contact details are all below.

Instagram
Twitter
Facebook
Website

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

London in Spring, Whats Not to Love?

Well I know there is still a lot not to love but I'm choosing to see the great things about London at the moment. I am having a ball this year visiting London as often as I can. Which is unusual for me since I usually prefer the comfort of my own home, in rural old Leicestershire. Staying home and avoiding people has always been the easy option. But this year, possibly due to the wonderful weather we keep having, has me longing for venturing out. Again, just like my last trip, I headed out with my good friend Panikos Hajistilly . Living in North London he finds it easy to meet up for our shoots. This time though I had more of an idea of the sights I wanted to use as the backdrops for my portraits. With it being spring I was in search of colour, preferably flowers. Admittedly. I didn't quite get what I was looking for. The white fronted terraced houses with pink magnolia trees we did not find unfortunately. But I did make it to Peggy Porchen's which was a must see on m...

Family Photos with Flair - Vanity Fair Style Family Portraits

This style of portrait continues to be the eye catching success I had always hoped it would be. Once again I created a beautiful family portrait that I am really proud of and I know this family loves too. Over the years I have developed this style through influences such as Vanity Fair and the many photographers I follow, though I hope that there is something in here that is entirely my own. Having my work easily identified as my own was a goal of mine from the start. Getting to the point where people will want not just a portrait but a Christina Lauder portrait is where I've always wanted to be and I'm hoping I'm on way. These portraits were created for the family of two professional photographers who wanted some portraits of their own. Family portraits isn't really something one can do of oneself, at least not easily. So they needed the services of another and I was honoured to be chosen for the job. They chose me not just for my style but also for my ab...

Never Work With Children or Animals

Or so the saying goes. But I have to say that working with dogs has been so lovely. They have been almost entirely a dream to work with. I say almost entirely because we have had a few moments where a dog has needed to settle. And one moment where the dog had settled but one of my cats decided to have a look through the glass door which, as you can imagine, rather quickly unsettled the dog. Still, that didn't stop us from creating incredible work. In fact it was during that shoot with the cat instance when I created two of my favourite pieces, shown below. (It was while sitting on the couch here when he noticed the cat peering through the curtain) I don't know if I've just been lucky or all dogs are just easy to work with. I photographed a french bull dog puppy and I thought that would be tough as he hadn't had time to be properly trained yet. But he did everything we wanted in no time at all. And this included the props we used here (below), which to me...

Teen Portraits - Prom Season is Just Around the Corner

If your child is heading to prom in the next couple of months I'd say there is probably no better time than now to have portraits created of your growing teen. With the purchase of a new (and probably expensive) outfit wouldn't it be nice to capture this milestone with a portrait created by a professional. Across the pond this is a hugely popular time to create portraits, and although I am not American (I'm Canadian) I wholeheartedly agree that this is a special moment to record. My prom was a key memory in my teen years and in fact I myself had professional portraits created also. I think I'll go dig them up if I can, though admittedly I think my mother has them back in Canada. I wonder if I can get her to scan one for me. My daughter is currently making plans for college and in the running is one that will move her away from home, as many others are probably experiencing for themselves, particularly those who are 18. This makes it all the more important to ...

Wedding Workshop in Nottingham

On Wednesday of this week I made the trek up to Nottingham (which wasn't actually much of a trek compared to most of the other delegates who travelled from as far as Glasgow, Portsmouth and South Wales) for a workshop held at Crash Taylor's home. Crash, a very talented photographer, specialising in weddings is someone I can highly recommend to anyone. Apart from spending the morning getting to know the other photographers we then spent the afternoon photographing a hired model, in her own wedding dress, as we wandered through Nottingham Castle. It provided me a chance to see how other photographers handled their weddings as well as a chance to experiment with equipment I haven't had a chance to play around with. Like in this image to the right. Here I used my flash, mounted on a tripod off to the side. This allowed me to achieve studio quality lighting out of the studio, a technique I will be using in my environmental portraiture. I can't seem to make up my mind on whi...