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Every holiday season I am asked whether I am offering mini sessions. I suppose they became popular because of the minimal amount of time and money involved. I see it all the time – mini sessions advertised on Facebook or Instagram: rock-bottom pricing, a handful of images, 15 minutes. You can book online and you may never even exchange words with the photographer before you meet for your lightning-fast session. A week or so later, your images are posted in an online gallery for you to download and that’s the end of that.
In this super-busy day and age when we all just have things to cross off the to-do list, I understand the appeal. All you need is ONE photo for the family Christmas card! 🎄 Might I suggest that you may as well just ask a friend or neighbor to do it with your iPhone? 📱 They really do take decent photos, and the editing apps and filters aren’t half bad . . .
Christine, as a professional photographer, how dare you suggest such a thing?? For starters, I prefer to get to know my portrait clients and their families. I want to know who they are, what makes them laugh, what they do for a living, what sports they play, where they travel, their favorite college football team (oh yes, I hear ALLLLL about it from the husbands whose wives book a session on a fall Saturday afternoon 🏈). Often, my clients become friends that I get to reconnect with year after year after year to document their family and help tell their stories. Only when I get to really know my clients can I give them a luxury custom portrait experience. There is absolutely nothing “mini” about the experience, even if they only walk away with a handful of prints (and guess what, you can!!).
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The first step in my process entails a Pre-Session Consultation (read this blog post about why I think they are SO important, and why you shouldn’t ever have a session without one!). Then we meet for our session where the time is only constrained by the sun going down, not because I have another family hovering on the sidelines because it’s their turn next. And finally I present my clients with their images set to music at a Portrait Ordering Appointment where I can provide my undivided attention and expertise to help make selections and answer any and all questions about retouching or cropping or products. I provide high-touch guidance every step of the way to ensure that your portraits turn out even better than you had envisioned.
I’ll let you in on a secret: I used to do mini sessions every year. And when I had them scheduled back-to-back-to-back in the thick of the pre-holiday madness I HATED them! Sure, I could churn out 10 families in two hours, but that’s exactly what it felt like: a picture machine. There was no casual conversation. No time allowed for a toddler tantrum to subside. No time for a shy preschooler to warm up. It was literally a check box. All for a photo that would be printed on a card that would go out to friends and family and then thrown in the recycling bin come January 1?
Listen, I GET IT. We are busy people! However . . . perhaps you should consider a portrait session as a gift to yourself and future generations, an experience that will provide you with TANGIBLE memories (not just digital files lost amongst the thousands on your hard drive or stuck on a USB in a drawer someplace) for you to enjoy for many years to come. And not simply that card tossed in the trash when the holidays are over. 🗑 Your family deserves better than that.
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