Mother and Daughter Fine Art Portrait Session – The Individual Portraits

As a follow on from my Mother’s Day promotion blog (click here to see the Mother’s day promotion blog post) I wanted to share the individual portraits that were taken on the day. I think I’m in love. I never quite know the direction a session is going to take until we begin. I always have ideas and a plan of course but it still comes down to the people in the room, particularly when working with children.

On this occasion I had never met this young lady. I usually try to meet with the people I am photographing prior to our session so I know who I am working with and more importantly they know me. But this time I had already met the mother on more than one occasion so we didn’t really find it necessary to meet again. Besides, at the age of 12 I was comfortable knowing she’d be fine with me. Younger children I would definitely prefer to meet first so that they aren’t spending their day with a complete stranger causing an uncomfortableness that could show in the portraits.

This lovely young lady was well up for the task ahead. I could tell she enjoyed it and it wasn’t long before she looked very comfortable in her portraits. Actually, while we’re here I’d like to explain that everyone (well almost everyone) is a little uncomfortable at first. Quite often the first several images are poor as this unease shows. As we go on however, this wears off and we get into a grove that produces beautiful and natural looking images.

I am very much in love with my dark background images here. This background is one I painted myself, on canvas. This sort of background has been of interest to me for sometime and it wasn’t until recently that I learned where I could order such backgrounds. They are actually from America and frequently used by the likes of Annie Leibowitz for such publications as Vanity Fair. So you can imagine where the appeal comes from. And of course that means they are out of my budget at this moment in time.

So I took on the task of creating one myself, which still wasn’t cheap when factoring the cost of the canvas, the cost of the paints, and the hours of painting and re-painting to get it to where I like it. And to be honest I’m toying with painting it again as its just a little too dark for me. But before I do that I’m going to buy another canvas and create an entirely different one before I risk ruining one I already quite like. I can’t wait for the budget to allow me to do this. For now with a trip home to Canada to pay for and a few other props already on order I have to wait for the canvas.

I also had fun creating a few different portraits this time, which is something I like to do in most shoots. Its these trial shots that often give me new ideas for future shoots and contribute so much to my inspiration and creativity. Which is why I pulled out the pink paper for a few and used my white wall in a way I’ve not used before. I bought the pink paper years ago and I’ve hardly used it.

I got this idea from one of my fellow brand ambassadors on the Bowens stand at the convention in London last month. I have always been in the habit of having my subjects sit several feet away from my backdrop and it never really occurred to me to have them lean against it. So I tried it here and quite liked the result.  I think this is something I will keep working with.

And now here is a couple of images of Mum in her wedding dress. This is something I’d very much like to begin doing on a regular basis, creating some beautiful portraits of brides after their wedding. I have no interest at all in photographing weddings. Its not my thing. I am perfectly happy in the comfort of my studio. But I like the idea of bridal portraits after the fact.

We only did a few here because this shoot was about so much and this was just a small part of it as a trial. But I loved working with all this tulle and an up do so I hope I get to do this again soon.

If bridal portraits is something you are interested in please get in touch and let’s see what we can do. You might be able to help with my portfolio building for this area of work. Please email me at christina@christinalauderportraits.com if interested.