I’ll be honest. I hate those standard portraits we get from big department and portrait factories.

Why? Because the people in them never really look like themselves.  It makes me sad to see the fake smiles and people posing in ways they never would in real life in front of  a background that is meaningless in their lives. The photos never tell a story. They never show who we were in that year on that day. They never show the funny little things that we did for a period of our lives. In short, they don’t show the real us – and that’s a shame, because it’s those memories that will make us smile when we look at our photos years from now. It’s the little things that are special.

I wholeheartedly believe that the joy of looking at photographs come from remembering who we were and what we were doing when they were taken, and you just can’t get that from a big store portrait.

My goal with any portrait is to capture the humanity of my subject in a meaningful environment and tell a story about who they were at that moment in their lives. It doesn’t matter if it’s a portrait of an old moonshiner or a portrait of a 2-year-old. There is something unique and individual in all of us, and it is my aim to capture that and share it with my clients.  And, there is no better feeling than nailing everything in one image – to watch the client’s eyes light up when they look at the image.

So, whehter you hire me to shoot your portraits or hire someone else, it doesn’t matter. Get real images of yourself and loved ones. Ask that your photographer come to your home or to some other special meaningful place for you and your family. Ask to interact with your family in your portraits and get “real” images. Even if you have to pay a little more, you will be so much happier with the results.  I promise.