Whidbey Island Childrens Portraiture

Over the summer when I was doing the photo booth at the Island County Fair, I met a woman who spoke about trying to have a baby. She already had two girls but they were having a hard time conceiving a third child. A few months after the fair I ran into her again only to find out she was a few weeks into her pregnancy. It was quite exciting and we talked about taking her announcement pictures.

 

When the time came to get the images done we picked out a location on Whidbey Island that meant something to the family. I’ll be blogging about that picture later because it’s an excellent showcase of what goes on behind the scenes with photo clean up. This particular blog entry is to share my love about photographing children. I really do love portraiture. I also really love finding a model that may not look like much but when photographed can really take your breath away.

 

The couple’s youngest daughter did this to me. Now, I’m not trying to discredit her beauty, she is still a cute little girl but when I stole a few shots of her she really came across as this mysterious beauty. This always makes my day. I’m not that type of photographer to tell my model to look at me and smile. I like the natural look, I try to really capture the essence of a person. Honestly, sometimes a smile is not a true representation of a person. There is a time and place for smiling but there is also a time and place for just natural beauty. This portrait captures that essence. All I did was ask her to lean against the wall and allow me to photograph her. I never told her to smile, I never told her to look directly at me. I let her be natural and observe her surroundings. We of course captured images of her smiling and looking at me but those did not turn out as well as the ones of her just being herself.

 

I have started to acquire this great series of portraits of children on Whidbey island just being themselves that are quite powerful. I focus on a few aspects of the child and go from there. It’s so important to have an image, preferably a few over the years, of the child that exemplifies their natural personality. People love an image and a powerful image can mean the world to someone, especially a parent, grandparent or any family member. I encourage parents to maintain a few images of their child that is just of them. This way, years down the road you can hold this image and go back in time and have that little person back again, if only for a few minutes, it means the world.