Lets Celebrate the Graduates
Graduating During A Pandemic
Academic excellence, graduation season, and job searches are stressful tasks and events on their own. Being a college senior during a pandemic was anything but stress-free. Not only students but institutions and instructors had a difficult time transitioning to an online learning environment. The pandemic has left students in a state of limbo and has heightened their financial anxieties, physical and emotional health concerns, graduation disappointment, career uncertainty, and negative academic impact.
The graduating class of 2021—both from high school and from college—has not had the proper time to grieve the loss of the last months of their high school and college experiences and their graduation ceremonies. People are in survival mode, and being mentally and physically stable is a luxury. There is sadness everywhere right now. It’s a tough request to ask students to adapt while their future plans have been hindered, but this is the reality.
This Giveaway is just something that we wanted to do to show our appreciation for the grads by honoring them with a free session and pictures to show their special moment. We know that the class of 2021 has faced a great amount of adversity, and have successfully pushed through to the finish line. Yes, the portrait session is not a reflection of their entire high school or college experience but these circumstances do not have to take away from all that they have achieved.
These timeless images will be forever remembered by them, the class of 2021, who have endured such a difficult time. This is our way to show the graduate's accomplishments by highlighting this moment about them, not the social injustice or inequalities, not the misery of the pandemic. Help us to celebrate them by giving them this gift.
Family Portraits: Why are they important? Third Reason
Family Portraits: Why are they important?
REASON THREE: Tradition + Future Generations
Now, this might be a little off subject, but I promise I have a point. Sometimes when I walk into a wedding I'm photographing, there is a table set up with the wedding photos of the couple's parents and grandparents. The first thing I think of is, "Oh, how sweet!" Then I realize that I'm there to photograph this couple's wedding day so that someday their grandchildren might display that photo on their big day. And I think of just how powerful photography can be. One of my favorite things to do is look at old photos of my family, especially those who I've never met. It's important to have quality images that can be passed down from generation to generation, because we just don't know how our Facebook photos are going to be viewed 50 years from now. It's also fun to start the tradition of having family photos taken so it can be continued. Your teenagers may roll their eyes at it now, but someday they will see the value and continue on their own.
Family Portraits: Why are they important? Second Reason
Family Portraits: Why are they important?
REASON TWO: Wall Art Featuring Those You Love Most; oh, and YOU!
Let's face it, selfies are the big thing now right? Why are they such a big deal? Because it's a way to make sure EVERYONE gets in the photo, including the person taking it. And with the famed "selfie stick" the options are endless. But are these really the photos you want to blow up on a canvas and show off to anyone who walks into your home? No... Family portraits are an investment; yes. But if you think of creating these photos as art, you're really investing in so much more. I can't think of any better art to put on the walls of a home than art that features the people that you love most. And guess what? One of those people should be you! How often do you see a photo of a family, but either Mom or Dad is missing?? Often. Because someone had to take the photo! Well, a professional photoshoot ensures that everyone gets their moment to shine!
Family Portraits: Why are they important? First Reason
Family Portraits: Why are they important?
When was the last time you had a family portrait taken? No, I'm not talking about a group photo at a family BBQ. I'm talking about a professional portrait. Maybe you do a family photoshoot every year? Maybe you've only done it once? Maybe you've never had one? Whether you are a seasoned professional in finding perfectly matching outfits for your family or you think you could never get your kids to sit still for a portrait; this post is for you!
Let me start by telling you that although I am a photographer and I may be a little biased in this, I didn't grow up in a family that took family portraits. We didn't send out holiday cards every year and the photos on our walls were from events or our annual summer vacation. We have ONE professional photo and it was taken 20+ years ago. So I'm speaking to you as someone who didn't have this tradition, but who plans on having family portraits taken every year. In fact, if it wasn't for the pandemic we wouldn't have known how bare our walls were and we just started taking family portraits ourselves. And that's because now I know exactly how important it is.
So before you decide if family portraits are for you, let me give you three reasons why. Here's the first to this three series of messages:
REASON ONE: Document Changes
Your children are changing fast. They can change so much in just a few months. Documenting your family every year or even every few years can help show just how much you all are changing. Whether you're adding new family members, losing teeth, getting braces and so much more, this can be captured in a beautiful professional way.
Take this beautiful family for example. These photos are five years apart. The youngest daughter is a growing tween and dad can not put her over his shoulders anymore. I'm so glad that this family decided to do photos again because soon their daughters will be leaving for college. Don't wait around for the right time, do it to document the current changes in your life.
We Believe in Photography
We Believe
We believe in photography—but more than that, We believe in photographs. Printed photographs are tangible. We can hold on to them, pass them around, frame them and hang them on a wall. We can make albums to be treasured and looked through by children for years to come.
We can’t touch a file, and the truth is we don’t know the longevity of a file or if we will even be able to find it someday. A digital file is a bit of a mystery—if it’s lost, where did it go? If a drive is damaged, what happens to the files? How many people truly back up all their images?
What happened to disc cameras, eight-track tapes, Walkmans, and other technology we thought would last forever? What will our children be looking at in 20 or 30 years? Photographs are special—files are not!
We believe in printing our work professionally. We believe our work is more than a screensaver. Years of studying and perfecting my craft come down to more than sending files via the internet.
The photographs that we create for our clients are not only precious to our clients, they are also precious to us. It is our work, a lifetime of work that deserves to be printed.
Photographs are passed on to children and grandchildren. Can you imagine a floppy disk, a DVD or a flash drive sitting in a frame representing your family portraits?
Like many photographers we have struggled with bending to the needs or wants of a clientele that is looking for files. But this is what we discovered over the last year—it makes us uncomfortable in the center of my gut to hand over digital files, no matter the price. Clients have told me that the DVD is still sitting on a desk and they should have had me make the prints in the first place because they never have time to get to it.
We often wonder about those files that were sold…How were they printed? Did the client crop it too tight? Is the color correct? Did they attempt to alter the image? It troubles us because we put so much of ourselves into our work. And, we have to wonder…are we really acting as professionals and serving our client the best way that we know how to by simply selling intangible files that may never be printed?
For some, it’s easy…take some photos, edit them, burn them on a disk or flash-drive, and make a few bucks. We don’t and can’t operate that way—we care too much about our work, about our clients and future generations that might have no photographs because we wanted to make fast and easy money selling files.
We are taking a stand! We are photographers! We are without a doubt passionate about creating photographs—real pictures, printed on professional paper—and beautiful albums. We want your children, their children, our children and future grandchildren looking at and holding onto photographs, not the latest greatest gadget.
It has taken deep soul searching, a lot of thought and time, to define the value of our work. We are taking a stand against selling files and taking a strong stand for printing our photographs.
If being a business owner and photographers today means the current market will force us to sell files not photographs and to compromise our work and our values—well then, we are out.
But, that won’t happen! We know it won’t because we know there are people and clients who value our work, understand and respect the value that we have placed on our work, and actually want photographs.
We are David and Susan, professional photographers—We believe in and value photography and the images we leave for our children. Our work and your portraits will be professionally printed to our standards, they will be available to frame and look at in albums…
The portraits that we create for you will not become a part of your screensaver slideshow.
We have worked too hard and taken too much pride in our work for that to happen. We will not take the risk that in 20 years we will be a generation of lost photographs.
There We stand!