Five Tips For Awesome Family Portraits

Imagine this scenario:  You're at the park.  It's a beautiful day, and your family is all dressed up.  Your photographer is there with you, ready to hit the shutter at any moment to take your perfect family portrait-- or they would be; if your kids were at all interested in having their portrait taken.  Instead, your children are squirming, one is crying, and you are trying desperately to get everyone to all look at the camera -- and hopefully you'll all look good while doing it.

Family portraits can be a daunting task.  You hire a photographer, pick your date, your location, and just hope that everything will work out.  You spent a lot of time getting ready and dreaming of these photographs, make sure it is fun for the whole family (and get awesome photos) with these tips and tricks that you and your photographer should know.

#1 Happy kids make happy portraits

If the kids are happy, everyone will be happy.  It is of the utmost importance to make sure your session is fun for the kids.  Ask your photographer if they have games planned to keep your session fun and interesting.  One of my favorite games to play with my clients is a game between musical chairs and duck duck goose, it goes like this:  First, I ask the parents to sit (posed and ready!).  Second, the children are directed to circle around their parents, waiting for their quo to pounce into a big hug with lots of laughter and fun.  This game is great because it keeps kids active, and it captures natural and fun portraits of you and your children.

#2 "Can you see my eye?"

We all know that capturing your children looking at the camera can make or break their portrait, but how do you convince children of this fact?  Again, you make it fun!  There are several tricks to getting children to look at the camera, and your photographer should have a few up their sleeve!  My favorite is to tell kids that if they look really really close, they can see my eye through the lens.  When you ask them if they can, don't be surprised when they say "Yes!"

#3 Real emotions really work

Real smiles, real laughter, and real happiness.  How do you capture real emotions?  Next to eye contact, real emotion is one of the most important factors of portraiture. Capturing real emotions isn't only difficult in children, but can be difficult in adults as well.  The key often lies in those in and out of the frame.  You know your family best, what can you do help pull out that real smile?  Whether you're tickling your kids or telling silly stories to your husband off camera, you know what will work get those real emotions.  Have a few ideas on hand to help your session go smoothly, and when all else fails, I suggest a huge hug!

#4 Short and simple wins the race

You know your children, and you know how much they can handle.  It may be tempting to book the hour-long session (imagine the outfit changes!  The poses!), but if your three year old won't be able to stay focused, it may be best to skip it.  Instead of a single one-hour session, ask your photographer about doing two 30 minute sessions instead.  This will keep it fun and exciting for your children and will get you the outfits, poses, and the overall variety you want.

#5 There may be no perfect 

Though we can try as hard as we want -- every trick in the book -- family portraits can still be difficult.  When this happens, it is sometimes best to just accept what you can get.  Maybe you wanted classically posed photos, but your child will only be photographed with his stuffed bear.  Or maybe you wanted photos of your twins together, but they refuse to sit within arms reach of each other.  Things happen.  Unless your child has a complete meltdown, your photographer should be able to make it work.


I hope that these five tips will help you feel confident and excited for your next family portrait session.  Remember that your photographer is there to help you, so feel free to talk to them.  If you want to bring your kids favorite book, need to set aside time in the middle of your session for your kids to have a play break or anything else that will help your family portrait go smoothly, let them know.  We photographers can't wait to photograph happy families, so help us out by preparing us for success.  This is your session, and we want to photograph you being you! 

Mini Session, Graduation: Bianca

Just in time for some beautiful weather, I had the opportunity to photograph the lovely Bianca! We photographed at the Illinois State University quad, exploring the back allies and secret pathways around Degarmo (the education building).  We had a fantastic time, and I'm so happy I had the opportunity to photograph these graduation photographs.  

Bianca, Thank you for choosing me to do your portraits.  Good luck at your graduation in December, and all the adventures to come!

Love: Mini Session With Jessie & Bryan

A few days ago I had the fabulous opportunity to photograph two of my good friends to help celebrate their love.  We set up a little picnic and had a wonderful shoot at Miller Park.  We caught the sun right as it was setting and have plenty of lens flares to show for it!  It was a beautiful evening for a beautiful couple. 

Wedding: Ashley & Alec

Hey everyone!  It has been a long while since I have posted.  Being in grad school I have not been doing a lot of client focused photography, but I finally have a wedding to share!

I met Ashley and Alec at a wedding expo and I knew right then that they were an unbelievably sweet and fun loving couple.  I was very excited when they asked me to photograph their wedding!

The entire day was fun, relaxed, at a beautiful location, and the best part -- everyone was totally fantastic!  I can only hope that all of the weddings I photograph go as smoothly and as perfect as this one.

Ashley and Alec, thank you so much for inviting me into your lives to photograph this beautiful day.  With your fun loving personalities and strong relationship together and with God, I have no doubt that you will have the happily ever after of your favorite Disney movies.

-Lexie

Fashion Publications

When I first started out in photography, I had the ultimate goal of being a fashion photographer.  Though that is no longer my hope for my future, I still love fashion photography, and jump at the opportunity to have my work published!  I have had my work published in a few magazines thus far, and I can't wait to work with more!  So here are all of my publications in one blog post, have fun looking, and thank you to everyone I have had the opportunity to work with!  I can't wait to see what we come up with next. 

Haute Couture Chicago, January 2016

Surreal Beauty, October 2015

Obscurae Magazine, October 2015

Fashion Ignite, 2015

 Obscurae Magazine, August 2015

Fine Art: In Conversation

For the past several months I have been working on a body of work that focuses on women with mental illness.  This body of work is important to me because of my own dealings with anxiety, and the support (and sometimes lack there of) from my family, friends, and the world at large.

Recently, I had my opening at the Rachel Cooper Gallery, and it was a truly wonderful experience.  So many people came that they couldn't all fit in the gallery space.  The crowd was interested in my work, and I was even interviewed by a local radio station.

In this post, I will discuss some of the most asked questions from my opening, and share the answers with you.

Artist Statement:
Mental illness knows no bounds. It does not discriminate, nor judge. It has no opinion on monetary values, or age. Mental illness has no single face.
Mental illness is a little understood and often stereotyped condition that affects tens of millions of Americans each year-with approximately only half receiving treatment. For this body of work, I am focusing on mental illness in women. Because of gender roles, cultural expectations and societal treatment, women have a higher risk of developing mental illness. Due to the stereotype of women and their proneness to emotional problems, women who suffer from mental illnesses are often stigmatized. 
When one admits they have a mental illness, they lie themselves bare to those whom they share it with-this feeling of vulnerability is what my work captures for each individual model. Working with natural light in the models home, and as nude as they feel comfortable, these photographs represent the nakedness that comes with admitting to having a mental illness. Often, the people we least expect are the ones fighting the biggest battles. By asking for a statement from each model, they share with us their creativity, their hopes, their fears, and themselves in regards to their own mental illness, or the view of mental illness through our culture. 
By allowing my models this moment of exposure, this project expands from a simple portrait series to a collaboration of the reality of our own and the worlds mental illnesses. With the partnership of photography and personal statements, it is my hope that the viewers will walk away from this project with a more personal understanding of mental illness.

Where did you find your models?
I found my models by posting model calls on craigslist and Facebook.  I knew 3 of my models before hand, and the rest I met the day of the shoot.

How did you decide where to shoot them?
It was very important to me to shoot them in their home.  I wanted to shoot them each in a location that was important to them (their desk, vanity, bedroom, etc.) but I also followed the light.  If the lighting was fantastic in a room other than what they considered "theirs" I shot them both.  I usually ended up choosing the one with the more interesting lighting, as lighting is so important to me.

How did the models write their artist statements?
All models were asked to write a paragraph statement on "mental illness."  I purposefully left it very open ended because I wanted to give them the opportunity to say whatever they wanted.

Why are your models nude?
I photographed my models as nude as they felt comfortable to visually explain the feeling of vulnerability that comes with admitting one has a mental illness.  I came to each models home about an hour before I actually planned to shoot so that we could talk and get to know each other before shooting.

Did the models talk about their mental illness while shooting?
Some of the models did, some of them didn't.  I really let them lead the shoot, as their comfort was very important to me.  One girl said she had a mental illness and then we talked about a cute dress she was going to get at the mall and what her plans were for the rest of the week.  If they didn't want to talk about their mental illness, I didn't push them.

Is this the end of this body of work?
It's the end of this phase.  Something that a few people had to say about my work has actually lead to my next body of work.  I had people tell me that they didn't understand my body of work because my models didn't "look sick enough."  And that if my models looked sadder that it would have been easier to understand.  The idea that someone doesn't look "sick" is the whole point of my body of work.  This idea of someone having to "look sick" is what is leading me to do a broader body of work focusing on invisible illnesses/disabilities in general.  It is my hope that the more images people have of those who have invisible illnesses the less one has to "look sick" to be believed.

Thank you so much for your continued support.  I can't wait to continue working and sharing it with you.

If you would like to see more of my fine art work, you can go to my fine art website, www.lexiebragg.com