The first time I meet a lot of my clients is the day they come for a shoot.

As a newspaper photographer, which is how I started, my job was to capture the character of a person to tell a story.  As a portrait photographer, I have to make my clients love how they look.

I used to think the sign of a good photographer was getting it right on the first frame — that the responsibility for a successful shoot lay totally on my shoulders.

Now, I approach my work differently.  The photograph is a relationship.  Getting to know you and how you want to project yourself enhances the process.

The pictures of Rachel, below, show the evolution of our shoot.  I love how, in the hour and a half we had together, she opened up so comfortably.

Anatomy of a Shoot

When my daughter was about 10, she started rifling through a box of reject photographs.  She pulled out one with my husband sitting against a tree in Maine.  He had his arm around her and she was smiling.  Jake, our middle child, was struggling to position himself in the most prominent spot, and my youngest flew into the picture in the bottom left corner at the last minute, his face a blur of motion.  I thought the picture failed because of the blurriness and motion — and because, truthfully, it looked just like them.

Three years later, when my daughter pulled the photo out of the box, I realized the photograph defined us — me behind the camera, my husband happy hugging the kids and looking past me to the bay where he loved to sail, my daughter triumphant in her ability to remain calm and happy, while her younger brothers stayed in character, moving into the frame to find their place.

The more I photograph, the more I realize that the magic comes from giving parents and children the freedom to be themselves.  Every family comes to a shoot with its own unique energy, and it is important to tune into that.  In the photographs below, I was able to go past the formal images to ones that focused on a less guarded vision of themselves, where you see who they are with each other and the warm relationships they share.

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