Connection with your partner

Just recently Esmeralda and I got into an argument, the details of which are inconsequential to this blog. However, we were bickering back and fourth about something that was truly meaningless and we both refused to let it go. Eventually, things boiled over and it turned into a full on shouting match. Fortunately, the kids came in and we quickly pulled our heads out of our respective asses long enough to see that we were both being over the top. Lately, work for both of us has been at an all time high level of BS. It seems that with the heat people are acting increasingly irritating and reckless. Both Es and I are in leadership roles so this ultimately ends with us having to pick up the slack and throw ourselves into work. Time being the finite resource that it is, our attention and focus naturally shifts away from each other to focus on solving the problems of the world. This inevitably leads to our connection with each other fading. We were showing up and going through the motions of adulting and spousing (ya, I made that word up lol) but we weren’t being there for each other in a way that fostered a connection. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that this has happened. Fortunately, we know exactly how to reverse it.

Just because we lost our connection doesn’t mean that it is gone for good. In fact, it poses an opportunity that both of us absolutely love to take advantage of! COUPLES TIME! Over the years Es and I have learned that when we start to fight over meaningless crap it is because we are not connecting with each other in the way that we should be. As adults and parents, we have responsibilities outside of our relationship. Sometimes we get a bit too caught up in those other responsibilities and take too much of our attention away from each other. (If this sounds familiar to you, don’t worry it is completely normal. We all get caught up in the race a bit from time to time. The key is to recognize it and repair it before it sows unnecessary hardship in your relationship.) So how do we reverse it? We take some time, perhaps a weekend if possible or maybe just an evening out, just for ourselves. We will get someone to watch the demons and go and spend time just for us. We will go for dinner or a drive and we just talk about the things that are top of our minds. Sometimes that is us, other times it is work or the other frustrations that are ultimately distracting us from our relationship. The point is, we don’t overcomplicate it with some farfetched and overly mushy crap that some PhD wrote in a book. We just allow for the time that we need to reconnect. Or goal is to simply cut out all other distractions and just focus on each other. That simple act of giving each other our undivided attention is what we need to remind us of why we love each other and rekindle the connection that had faded.

Now this is not to say that all of those other things priorities in our lives are unimportant. They most certainly are. However, for Es and I, we do not intend on ever calling it quits. We committed to each other and have grown together since we were kids. We were “Us” before the kids, before the careers before the bills and the stress. When the kids are out of the house, the mortgage is paid off and the careers are over the only thing that will remain is “US”. So it is of vital importance that we consistently nurture our relationship with frequency and sincerity. If we fail to do that, it is very likely that there will not be an “Us” when it comes time to finally enjoy it. I also want to point out that the need to periodically reconnect is completely normal. No couple will stay perfectly connected 100% of the time. Every so often every couple needs to take a little time to hit the reset button and reconnect with each other.

At the end of the day, we all need to have a little time carved out for just us. Couple time is vital to a healthy relationship. It is because of this undeniable fact that Es and I have decided to pivot our business to primarily cater to Couples instead of families. We will, of course, continue to offer family sessions, primarily for those couples that have come to us to help them reconnect through one of our Couples Photography sessions. However, we want to help other couples strengthen their bond to each other just as Es and I have done time and time again. Our sessions are designed to carve out a little time just for you and your partner. We will guide you through a journey to find reconnection and create fond memories that you can look back on with joy and love. Additionally, we will offer Couple Photography sessions that focus on milestones in the life of a couple, such as engagements and anniversaries. Ultimately, our goal is to help couples in and around Seattle to connect with each other and celebrate the love that they share and the lives they have built. So if that sounds like something you might be interested in we would love to speak with you! Please reach out to us HERE.

How do you like to spend your couples time? What times do you have to help couples reconnect with each other? Please let me know in the comments!

-Dan

Couple Photography-The Foundation of a Strong Relationship

For the last few months I have been focusing exclusively on topics relating to family photography. Recently, Esmeralda and I have decided that while we absolutely love working with families, and we will continue to do in the future, our primary point of interest and our focus moving forward will be on the parents and the relationship they have built. As a married couple, Esmeralda and I have been through a lot. While we are still very young, early thirties, we have been together for nearly 16 years. We started dating as children and have made every mistake there is to make in a relationship before figuring out what worked for us. Fortunately for us, one of the very few things we have in common is our un-willingness to quit. This was probably the single greatest factor in why we are still together today. That un-willingness to quit forced us to find alternate paths forward rather than throwing in the towel. It has been a rough ride, but we have taken our bumps and have learned our lessons and have come out the other end knowing how to work with each other in a way that is easily received by the other. If you have been following along on this weekly blog, you will know that I will not be talking about how amazing we are, mostly because we aren’t any more amazing than anyone else. I will however try to convey some lessons that we have learned over the course of our relationship that is both counter to a lot of the “wisdom” floating around out there and has proven to help Esmeralda and I through some rough times in our relationship. So this week I want to talk about the importance of the individual identity in a strong relationship.

Throughout my life I have been told that once a person is married they need to shift themselves to be fully part of that relationship. They need to live in service of the other and learn to truly let their needs go to ensure the success of the marriage. The term “compromise” is thrown around a lot in these conversations as well, though what they really mean is that you both agree on something mildly enjoyable but ultimately unfulfilling to either of you. Maybe this works for you but I’ll be honest, in my life and relationship with Esmeralda it has been proven to be complete bullshit. The problem in my marriage is that we believed it so deeply that it took us years to figure out that it was CAUSING strife in our lives. We would constantly fight over the kids and fight about what we thought was right. We would bicker about our expectations that the other was not fulfilling and scoff at the idea that we were to blame for any of the struggles. Sometimes the arguments would get nasty, we would say horrible things in the heat of the battle that we would not only regret later, but not even mean in the first place. After doing this for what seemed like a life time, we started to come to the realization that this was not the life that we wanted to live. This set us down the path to figure out what it was that we were missing that was causing these feelings.

When we boiled it down, and this took years of work to figure this out, we realized that we never learned to be INDIVIDUALS. When we got together we were 17 and 18 respectively. We were children. We never had the time as adults to learn who we were before partnering up with someone that complimented us. Additionally, being kids we were far from being mature. The people that we were are not recognizable to us now. We were needing to both grow up and grown together. Fast forward to today and we have nearly been together in life for as long as we were apart! Were not in our 50s, were in our 30s! What we ultimately found was that we had committed ourselves to each other but we completely neglected ourselves. No amount of affection or love from the other would ever be enough because we didn’t even know what we needed or wanted from the other person! After coming to that realization we began trying to build a life outside of our family. We would grab some drinks with friends or hang out with work colleagues. Personally I used that time to be very focused on career building and started several hobbies, a few of which I still do to this day. Over time this helped us build an identity out side of our marriage, and our children. It allowed us to grow and explore our own interests with out concern that the other wasn’t interested. (This point is important to me. Im fairly sure that Esmeralda waits until I voice an opinion or and interest so that she can take an opposite stance from me. She says she doesn’t but I’m onto her games lol) More importantly it created a deeper and more individual for the other to enjoy. What we found was that our differing interests were great discussion points. We began to spend hours chatting and connecting rather than mindlessly staring at the TV. This led to us going to the store or to run small errands together, something that we never would have done. We started WANTING to be around each other again. Nowadays it is very common for us to talk to each other on the evening commute home, sometimes for over an hour just so we can have a bit of uninterrupted us time before the kids get involved. (This is a huge deal for us! If you haven’t figured it out yet, I talk a lot. Like a lot, a lot. Yet we have healed and grown our relationship to such an extent that she will WILLINGLY sit and listen to me for hours at a time!) We will often get up early to go to Pike Place Market to do some street photography before the kids get up. We just love spending time together now, even if what we are doing is mundane.

And as odd as it seems, this all started with us taking a step back from each other to focus on who WE WANTED to be. Building yourself into the person that you want to be is no easy feat to be sure. But avoiding that task all together is not a recipe for success. It ultimately led us down a path to understanding what we each wanted out of life and out of each other. We were able to create our personal list of priorities that we could then work to blend together. Because the truth of the matter is that those things I had been told about relationships, while bullshit, were not completely wrong. They were just only half of the equation. In order to have a healthy relationship you most certainly need to put some of your priorities further down the list, but you in no way need to abandon them. You will need to compromise (by doing things your partner enjoys because they enjoy them and not demanding things to only be your way) and communicate. You will need to listen and not just hear. However, you must also not lose sight of the fact that you are your own person and your strengths can strengthen your relationship just as your weaknesses can weaken it. With that said, I would like to revise that advice that I received all those years ago to more closely align to what I have expired to be true. The key to a strong relationship is to serve the needs of your partner while realizing that you have needs of your own. You should work on strengthening your strengths that most compliment your partners weaknesses. By doing this you will not only further develop yourself but you will necessarily become more aware of the strengths of your partner and will come to appreciate the way in which it complements you and your relationship.

This is the start of a new line of thoughts, all surrounding navigating life as a couple. I hope that you found value in my thoughts on this and that you will stick around next week for more. In the mean time, what do you think about this idea? Do you think I’m off base here or do you think that knowing who you are is vital to being part of a relationship? I would love to hear your thoughts down in the comments!

-Dan

The Importance of Authentic Family Photos

A couple weeks ago we began to unwrap the idea of authenticity in life and photography. The basic idea, if you haven’t read it yet, was that you have to be true to who you and your family are if you want the best results from your Family photo session. You cannot hope to have a great photo session if you walk into it trying to be someone else. You may walk away with a few decent pictures, but you will have missed out on an amazing experience to bond with your love ones and create an amazing memory that your family can cherish forever. Look, I get it. We all get a bit stuck in the “keeping up with the Jones’” mentality. We get slammed in the face with it every PTA meeting when Debbie from up the street with her perfect family and her perfect house waves her perfectly posed and perfectly adorable family photos in our not so perfect face as soon as we walk through the damn door…aahhhh the frustration is real. But you have to remember, that you are not the Jones’, unless you are in which case *high pitch and obviously fake voice “Hey Debbie, OMG your family is so amazing and perfect. You have to tell me where you got that dress for your daughter!” (UUUUGGHHHH, don’t judge me, you all have a Debbie too).

Aaannnnyyyways, a common theme I often hit on is that you are already amazing as you are. Regardless of any things you are working on or goals you may have, you are today just as you are meant to be. Don’t worry about what the Jones’ are doing. Don’t be envious of what they have. What they have is perfect for them, but you aren’t them so it’s not perfect for YOU. Focus on what you have and what is perfect for you and good things will come, I assure you. This is what it is to be authentic to who you are. If your home life is a bit messy and free and wild, your family photo shoot should be too! If your life is very prim and proper and neat then so should your photos. Ultimately, you want to walk away from your session feeling like you documented a great, but not completely out of the ordinary, day in your family’s life. You want to be able to look back at those photos and recall the fun that you had not just from “that one time we did photos” but from that entire portion of your life. Getting to look back at those moments is a gift, especially when your kids are going though weird phases and you can use it to poke fun at them in a few years HAHAHAHA…I’m a horrible father, but a really fun person, I promise.

So the point is, don’t be afraid or ashamed of who you are today. Don’t allow where others are at in the journey of their lives effect how you view the progress in yours. In 10 years time you will probably not remember what the Jones’ were doing, but you will absolutely still have that family photo session that you tried to model after them. I can tell you that, unlike a fine wine, an inauthentic photo session will not age well. You will look at those photos and not FEEL them. You will thumb through them and smirk once or twice without ever catching a case of the feels. You won’t have that emotional connection to those images because despite them containing the most important people in your world, YOU won’t be in them! However, if you go to your next photo session and be authentic to who you and your family are, you will look back at those family pictures and be flooded with the memories of the day. Those memories are what we are ultimately after, are they not? By being your authentic self you will walk away from your session knowing that you captured the essence of your family. When you get them back you will have a true representation of who you and your family are. And, hey, they may not be all perfectly posed with perfect smiles but you know what? They will be perfectly YOU. Ultimately, perfectly you is the the best kind of perfect there is. Then you can go and shove your perfectly you pictures in irritatingly perfect Debbie Jones’ face at next months PTA meeting and see how she likes it!

Do you have a Debbie Jones in your life? Are you a Debbie Jones? I would love to hear all about it in the comments!

-Dan

5 Tips for a Successful Family Photo Session When Your Child Has a Case of the “Grumps”

Every parent of a small child has had their share of those trying days. The days where your entire existence is taken up by a cranky kid who is screaming and throwing tantrums in the middle of the grocery store when you are just trying to get a pack of bacon and some wine. It’s tough, I know. However, it is life. It is ultimately the nature of kids to flip out at the most inopportune, and embarrassing, times. Most of the time it’s really not a big deal. We just grit our teeth, put on a fake smile and not try to break down in the middle of the Fred Meyers frozen section for the SECOND time this month. However, when the topic of booking your Family Photo Session arises, the worries that our little bundles of joy, or in my case terror, will act a fool rise with it. I have even heard parents tell me that they WON’T book a session for fear of their child misbehaving and “ruining” their family photo session. Honestly that makes me super sad. Partly because they won’t hire Esmeralda and I, but mostly because they are missing out on the opportunity to document their lives so that their children and grandchildren can look back years from now and see their lives as they once were. That is an amazing opportunity and a gift that shouldn’t be taken lightly. The concern of misbehaving children “ruining” a photo session is a semi-valid one. However, it is also one that is easily mitigated by following a few practical tips.

1. Late naps- Often times photographers like to hold their sessions at or around sunset. This is known as Golden Hour and produces a beautifully natural warmth that lends itself amazingly to photos. For adults, this is perfect, for children not so much. Pushing your kids nap time to a bit later in the day will go a long way to ensuring that they are well rested and not cranky at the time of their shoot. Don’t worry too much about issues at bed time, if your photographer is anything like us they will be getting them to run and dance and jump and play to release as much energy as possible through out the session.

2. Don’t overdo dinner- You want to be careful on getting the kids packed full of food. They will likely get sick with all of the activity of the family photo session if they eat a big meal beforehand. Try to either have a smaller meal or eat a bit earlier so that they are well digested and ready to run by the time the session starts.

3. Snacks- Have some of their favorite snacks on hand just incase they need a little pick-me-up or a bribe. This works really well. Esmeralda and I always have candy on hand during our Family Sessions to use as bribes or to help pull an upset child back from the brink of collapse.

4. LET THEM BE KIDS!- Just like it’s important for you to be authentically you, the same is true for your children. Don’t worry about what others might think about your active children. Just let them be themselves. Let them run and jump and play. Your Photographer can handle it, I promise. (If they can’t and you are in the Pacific North West, come see us. We can handle it) Your photographer should be well accustomed to working with all types of children. Let them run around with your kids and capture all of those amazing moments. If they need a hand they will ask. If not, keep calm and enjoy the moment of rest before they give your kids back.

5. Trust your photographer- In the moment you may be looking at your kids being wild and free and you worry that the photos are going to come out horrible. Chances are, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Your photographer should be well versed in handling the dynamics taking photos of children. Just as you don’t stand over the shoulder of your landscaper questioning if he clipped the hedges correctly, you shouldn’t stand over your photographer’s shoulder questioning if they got the shot. There is a perfectly acceptable time to question a photographer’s ability, it’s BEFORE you hire them. Before you hire a photographer you should look at their work and make sure that what they provide is what you need. You should speak with them and make sure that their style and personality fits with yours and ask any questions that you have about working with your particular concern. Once you hire them it is their job to deliver a consistent product to you. So, assuming that you did appropriate research, trust the professional to manage the situation and get those amazing images!

So there you have it. 5 simple tips that can help keep the kids happy and energetic throughout the whole session. Just remember, they are kids. It’s okay for them to be silly and play. It’s okay if they stain their pants while playing or rip their coat on the playground. Those little details ARE the story of who they are at that moment. Those details are the ones that are worth capturing and holding onto. So, rather than allowing your stress level to rise at the sight of the stained pants or the ripped coat, just smile and know that your photographer has it under control and your images are going to be a perfect representation of who you and your family are.

Be honest, are you concerned about your kids behavior during a photo session? Has it ever stopped you from booking one? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

-Dan

Authenticity in Life and Photography

For years, photography was thought of as being very formal and posed. Mom would schedule the session at JC Penny and do all of the shopping to get the clothes for the family portrait. She wanted that yearly update to the family photo to hang over the mantle for all to see. As the session drew closer she would begin to get overprotective of the kids, not wanting to have any little bump or bruise, especially on the faces, of any of the kids. Finally, the day of the session would arrive. Mom would have all of the clothes pressed and laid out for everyone and would make all of the final touches on everyones wardrobe to make sure it was just right. The youngest would immediately wipe snot on their shirt, Mom’s stress level would rise. The family then would jump in the car and head over to their session. By this point Mom had built the session out in her mind to such a high standard that the only possible out come was that the actual session wouldn’t live up. This of course led to hushed threats under Mom’s breath as to what would happen if you didn’t “smile right”, Mom’s stress level would rise further. Dad would become increasingly irritated at the whole thing, that he didn’t want to deal with in the first place, leaving Mom’s stress level to rise further still. Then the kids would start to lose patience, and the very little interest they had in the situation would slip right tough their tiny fingers. Then, Mom’s stress level would implode and all hell would break loose. If your family was anything like mine, what followed could only be described as a scene out of a National Lampoon’s Vacation movie. Mom would completely loose it, the photographer, panicked, would be doing everything they could to hold on to what little control they had left and Dad at some point would just throw his hands up and walk out, ultimately making the entire situation worse for everyone else. If Mom was lucky she would end up with one photo where, other than the pained expression on one kid’s face (from being pinched into compliance by Mom), everyone looked halfway decent but definitely not what she had wanted.

Hopefully for most of you that was just entertaining and in no way relatable. For everyone else, I know… I feel you… all we can do is look back and laugh and make sure that we do it differently. So, what was the point of that whole story? The point is that, back in the day, Mom was trying to fit the square peg in the round hole. No matter how hard she tried, and how beautiful her intentions were, it wasn’t going to fit. The problem was one of inauthenticity. Mom was looking for that photo that everyone else had, where everyone was just perfect and smiling and adorable and heartwarming and and and exactly the opposite of the the beautifully imperfect mess that was their life. What she wanted was SOMEONE ELSE’S family portrait. An image that, while very beautiful, was not in keeping with who they were as a family.

That begs the question, “What did they need to do to get their perfect picture?” BE THEMSELVES!!! They needed to be themselves, in all their hot mess glory (perfect descriptor for my perfectly imperfect family). They needed a photographer that wanted to be up and active to chase the kids and to run and play and engage and laugh and joke and just understand that the life that their family had made was perfectly imperfect and that was, well… perfect. They needed to get images of the kids leaping off the top of a jungle gym, sliding down the slide upside down and backwards and screaming at the top of their lungs. They need images of Dad jumping off the swings with the girls and Mom patching him up when he inevitably hurt himself. They needed images that show WHO THEY ARE. Images that strike at the heart of what it is to be a part of their family. The laughter, the tears, the anger and wry jokes all included.

So, what I am am trying to impress upon you is this. You are, as you are meant to be, right now. Next year, you will be as you are meant to be for next year. Maybe different, maybe the same, perfect either way. Embrace it. Love it. Document it. Our lives are ever changing, especially those of us with younger children running about. However, don’t get misled into thinking that what you have today isn’t worthy of remembering or documenting. The lessons and struggles that we learn and fight through today ARE what shape us into who we will become in the future. So in that sense, it is vital to document it. If only to serve as a marker for how far you have come. Ultimately the point is, regardless of who you are and where you are at in life, just be authentic and true to who you are. Understand that you are already perfectly you, regardless of how much growing you have ahead of you. Just know that there are Photographers out there that specialize in recognizing and capturing the “perfectly imperfect”. *Shameless self promotion ahead- Esmeralda and I specialize in doing just that! We capture those “fleeting moments” that define the love you share with your family. If you’re in the the Greater Seattle area and want a perfectly imperfect session of your own, you can schedule your consultation with us HERE.

What do you all think? Do you relate to the “perfectly imperfect” family, who (*awkwardly stressed expression*) in no way is indicative of my childhood? Do you like the posed photos where everyone is looking at the camera smiling or do you like the images that show a snapshot of your lifestyle? What does your dream Family or Couple Photo Session look like? Please let me know in the comments!

-Dan

Family Photography and Struggling with Negative Self-Esteem

As some of you may well know, Esmeralda and I both have full time jobs aside from running Pike and Pine Photography. Esmeralda runs a medical facility north of Seattle and I work as a manager for a soda bottling company. Naturally, we end up talking to our respective co-workers about having their family portraits done. One of the common responses we get is “Oh ya, we want to book but I just need to lose a few pounds” or “I want to just get pictures of the kids done because I don’t like getting pictures done”. Both of these responses come from a deep seed of self-consciousness that I wanted to (probably not briefly) talk about. Just a heads up, Im going to get overly personal and I am card carrying member of over-sharers anonymous, so either bail now or hold on tight because even I don’t know where I’m going with this! LMAO

I have always been the “fat guy”. My whole life. It was something that was quite often thrown in my face, frequently by my own mother, on a routine basis. When I tried to joined the Army initially I was told that I was too fat to join and I needed to lose 30lbs before I could even be considered. This of course seemed to be par for the course of my life, so I worked really hard and got in the best shape of my life to join the Army. When I shipped out for basic it became blatantly obvious to me that I was still, in fact, the “fat guy”. Despite all of the work I had put in and the confidence that I had built up in that half year journey to join the Army, I was now in a place that was MADE for the fit. During training, it was a fairly regular occurrence for my Drill Instructors to not allow me to eat, sometimes for a day or two at a time. They would have me hold the door for the entire Battery (I was Field Artillery so we have Batteries instead of Companies) and I would be the last person in the chow line. Once I got my food to my seat at the table, the Drill Instructor would wait for me to put my rifle down and just as I would begin to sit they would walk up to the table and say “This table is done, go clean up your plates and form up outside.” On multiple occasions they would joke about it with me a few feet away, just so I didn’t have any misconceptions about it being an accident. When it was all done and said, I graduated from Basic Training a few months later at 187 pounds, the leanest I had ever been in my adult life and a continued belief that I was “fat”.  After training, despite consistent working out I was never really able to maintain a low body fat percentage, nor was I ever able to be free of the title of resident “fat guy”. In fact, the only cadence I was ever taught were songs about being fat. To say that that did not have a horribly negative impact on my self-image would be and outright lie. Truthfully, it is something that I still find myself fighting with on a fairly routine basis.

The whole point of that extremely long story was to build up my credibility as a not fit person and as a person who has struggled, and continues to struggle, with poor body image. For years I was stuck in this spiral of not feeling good enough or worth enough to invest in myself, leading to more poor diet choices. I used food as a comfort rather than as nutrition, and the scale reflected it. However, I finally realized that while my poor self-esteem was effecting me in a negative way, it was outright hurting my wife and children. They couldn’t get me to go swimming or go play in the park. They couldn’t get me to join in on the family photos or take silly selfies showing off our silly personalities. I was actively denying them the opportunities to build memories with me. Me, I did that. I racked up a large debt of memories lost and fleeting moments wasted and they had to pick up the tab. When I came to that realization I knew I had to make a change. The very first thing I changed was not punishing my family for how I viewed myself. I started to take those pictures and go to the park and do all of those activities that will build precious memories that my children can look back on throughout their lives. I did that for them, despite it being extremely difficult for me to do. The second thing I did was for me. I changed my relationship with food. I started on a carnivorous diet, meaning I exclusively eat meat and animal products. You are very likely thinking the question that every one always asks me “But you still eat vegetables though right?”. (LOL exclusively must be a confusing term to use) No. Not really. I don’t go out of my way to avoid a bit of lettuce on a burger patty or some sauce on a steak, but when given an option I only eat meat, eggs and cheese. So, once I switched to this diet I began to feel better. A lot of the harmful thoughts and views of myself began to fade and loose their grip on my life. I began to lose weight and the injuries from the Army began to be less limiting. I began to feel better and do more with my family. My mood improved because I wasn’t in constant pain any longer so I spent more time laughing with my family instead of being grumpy and hiding away from them. Within 5 months I had lost 61 lbs with zero exercise. I went from my all time highest weight of 242lbs down to my all time lowest of 181lbs. After sitting there for a bit I decided that I should start working out. Over the next 4 month window I went from 181lbs to 208lbs while lifting 5 days a week. Currently I am back down to 191lbs and the leanest, and most fit, I have been in my entire adult life. And all because I decided that my children shouldn’t be responsible for paying for the decisions that I made.

Ultimately you can take my story however you want. All I really want you to take away is that while we torture ourselves with poor self image, our loved ones are who actually pay the price for that. They miss out on spending time with us because “we don’t do that”. We make little harmless excuses or tell the kids “oh honey, not today” knowing full well we have no intention of EVER doing it because we aren’t comfortable enough with ourselves to do it. Those moments matter. They may seem insignificant, but those are the fleeting moments that are the basis for the love we have for our families. Those outings allow us to build memories and capture moments that would otherwise not had an occasion to exist. You must stop letting those moments slip through your fingers. By avoiding a family photo session you are also missing the opportunity to document the beautiful life you have created for you and your family. Even if you aren’t the most comfortable with yourself right now, you will likely regret not having images of and with your family, especially as the little ones grow older. So do yourself a favor and just take the leap. Try it out and see how it plays out. At the worst, you won’t be comfortable with the images you are in but will be extremely happy about having pictures of your family to harass everyone at work with (no? Is that just a me thing? IDC my kids are cute and everyone should love them too hahaha). Best case scenario you capture amazing moments with your family that immortalize those fleeting moments that define the love you share with your family. Either way, it seems to be a win-win scenario.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you have some self image struggles that you have overcome or are in the process of overcoming? I would love to hear about it, if you’re willing to share that is. If you are, leave a comment below! Looking forward to hearing from you all!

-Dan

So, You Decided to Print Your Photos…

So, you have decided that you wanted to turn your beautiful digital images into even more beautiful physical prints. First off, congrats! I think you are making the best possible decision for appreciating and reliving those precious moments captured within your images. As I’m sure you are aware, since you found your way here, there are a boat load of different options when it comes to printing  your family portraits. You can do cards, posters, canvas, framed, acrylic, metal, cups, mugs, calendars, towels, mouse pads and the list goes on and on and on. It’s honestly kind of exhausting and overwhelming trying to figure out what you should pick. So, the ultimate question is, how do you choose what to print?

If you have been following along, over the past two weeks we have been exploring the idea and emotion behind capturing images. We came to the conclusions that capturing images preserves them from the destruction of time and the best way to appreciate them is to print them. That being said, if the ultimate goal is to have an item, or several items, that are meant to evoke emotions in you every time you see them then the question we need to explore is how do you WANT to see them? 

This question, while simple, may not be so easily answered as it is very dependent on personal circumstance. Some people lead extremely busy lives and are rarely in one place for long. They choose to print lots of smaller images and hang them everywhere they spend their time or keep them in their luggage. Others love to keep a wall specially designated to family portraits. They spend a lot of time curating that wall and the images that go on them. Some of the photos are small and others are massive. For me, I would love to have some large family prints on the walls, however, our home is old and storage is minimal. To expand our storage space most of our walls are covered in shelving. For that reason we choose to keep our family photos in albums and hang smaller prints throughout the house instead. We enjoy spending time with the kids going though each album reminiscing about times long gone, telling stories of fond memories captured within each page. Our children love to go through the pictures giggling about  how daddy had longer hair than mommy but now he has none. They love seeing seeing us and the love that we very clearly shared even before their births. For my wife and I, we love spending that time with our kids and seeing their faces while they go though each album. We love to see ourselves as we once were, serving as a hearty reminder of the vast distance that we have traveled and the great challenges we have overcome…together. Seeing each other as we once were reminds us of how far we have come and much we have grown together. It strengthens our bond and reaffirms our commitment to each other.  For us, that time is just as precious as the moments we pour over in those albums.

So you see, the answer to the question of what to print is deeply complex. I think the most important question you have to ask yourself is “how do you want to enjoy those memories?” Do you want quick reminders of those fleeting moments to give you that quick pick me up at work or abroad? Do you want to have a mural dedicated to your loved ones that you can show off to everyone that may come to your home? Maybe you are like us, and would like to make looking at your photos a family event that holds its own special significance. One thing is for sure, there are no wrong answers. Just like the memories captured within those images, the decision on how you will best enjoy them is deeply personal. So in the end, I just recommend to print them in whatever way seems best…except for mugs. Please don’t do that. They always look terrible and other than a holiday party gag gift, they serve no purpose. So please, print literally anything else…well maybe not mouses pads. I mean, that should be a given but I had to bring it up because I really dislike them. So please, print literally anything other than mugs and mouse pads…well maybe ( lol just kidding). Let me know what you decide on down in the comments!

-Dan

I Got My Family Photo Session Images back, Now What?

So you got your family session all wrapped up, you spent a few weeks waiting and anticipating and the exciting day comes where your gallery is delivered to you. With jittery anticipation you look through all of your amazing photos, hearting the ones that you love. With each photo that scrolls across your screen a new level of excitement builds up in your chest. You scroll further and the excitement builds further. You scroll, you heart, you laugh. The excitement grows more intense with each passing second. And then…and then…aaaannnnndddd tttthhhheeennnn. (Cue the Chinese take out scene from “Dude Where’s My Car”) “No ‘and then!’”. You post a few to social media and maybe go back to look at them a few more times over the next month or so. After that, the amazing session and your beautiful gallery fade from memory. Totally anti-climatic right? What if I told you it didn’t have to be that way? What if I told you that despite your photographer delivering you your images in digital form, they are not meant to be enjoyed or appreciated digitally? Would that be news to you, would it be surprising? Because I can tell you, that is 100% true. Regardless of how your images are given to you they cannot be truly appreciated on your phone or as a screen saver on your computer. So, how are they to be appreciated?

Last week I touched on my thoughts on the true value of photography. Essentially, I contend that the value of photography cannot be measured by the dollar and cents of the session cost but rather by the emotion locked within the memories captured in each image. The dangerous thing about memories is that they are fragile, consistently fading with each passing day until one day they are gone. To capture them is to immortalize them, protecting them from the brutality of time. 

That leads me back to the question I posed previously; How are photographs meant to be appreciated? Simply put, print them. Photos need to be seen to be appreciated and to have the effect of spreading joy into your life. By having the photos hanging up throughout your daily spaces you are inviting those joyous memories to spread happiness into your day. You offer yourself an opportunity to smile when you are feeling down or fill your heart with love after a difficult day. Those emotions are powerful tools that can positively effect you and your mental health when you need it most. Ultimately that is the whole point of getting your pictures taken to begin with, right? You wanted to have a photo session so that you captured those memories of significant life stages so as to look back at them as the years go by, unlocking the memories and joy if only for a moment. What is the real chance that you will do that if you only keep them digitally? Speaking from experience, both my own and from past clients, about zero. By allowing those photos to sit stagnant on a hard drive in the closet you are essentially locking away those memories and the emotions held within them.

So when it is all done and said what you do with your images is, of course, up to you. You can choose to archive them with the soft intent of doing something at an undefined point in the future, or you can seize the opportunity from day one and ensure that your images are able to inject joy into your day on a routine basis. So why not print them and hang them throughout your life as a gleaming reminder of those special moments that define the love you have for your family? What are your thoughts on this? Do you think that keeping your photos exclusively digital is enough or do you feel like they should be printed to be fully appreciated? Let me know below, I would love your hear your thoughts.

-Dan

The True Value of Photography

Let me start off with some background on myself. My name is Dan Switzer I have three over the top, high energy, drama to the max, adorable children and I am madly in love with the most beautiful woman in the world, Salma Hayek. (Update: My wife hated that joke and told me to take it out. I told her I did lol) In all seriousness, I am married to the most amazing woman I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Not only is she an amazing mother and wife she is intensely kind in a way that makes you feel special rather than that fake kindness that is all too common these days. My wife, Esmeralda, and I have been together since we were 17 and 18 respectively. Now 33 and 34. We both work full time and run our photography business, Pike and Pine Photography, on our “spare” time. We specialize in family and couple photography, seeking out families and couple that are much like ourselves; fun, quirky, over the top, honest and after several Google searches still not 100% sure if they know how to properly use a semi-colon. So, In a nutshell this is me and this is us. 

So, with that out of the way I wanted to work through my thoughts on the value of photography. If you are expecting me to talk about why you should spend tons of money on photography, you may be sad to know that I will not. I will however, attempt to define the value I place on having the life of my family documented. 

When I think about the value of something I think of the emotion, need or use tied to it. For me I value convenience over cost. I’m a sucker for quick and easy. I will always pay more to wait less. The idea of saving a renewable resource, money, while sacrificing an undeniably scarce resource, time, doesn’t make any sense to me. Those seconds or minutes that I save add up over time to be a trip to the zoo or time to teach my oldest how to take a photo. Those dollars that I spent in gaining those moments then become largely inconsequential in relation to the the memories that my children will carry for the duration of their lifetime. So when I try and asses the value of an item, tangible or not, I try and look at what having or not having it would mean for my life. Using the convenience example again, I have decided that money is less valuable than time and as such I will happily trade money for time without a second thought. That is certainly not to say that it’s the right way or the only way. It’s just my way, and one of the things that makes me, me. 

To better explain where I’m coming from I want to explain how we became Interested in family portraits. When Esmeralda and I were first looking into starting our business we were throwing around Ideas of what kind of pictures we wanted to take. To non-photographers, it’s easy to assume that all photographers can take any kind of photo since they have the required gear, a camera. The truth is, quite frustratingly I might add, far more nuanced than that. While it is true that a skilled photographer can likely take a decent photo in a number of genres, they really only master one or two over the course of their lifetime. Some of the best photographers in history only ever really used one focal length and shot exclusively one style for their entire career! Like most things in life, the more broad your focus the less time you have to spend on mastering each element. So then, if we couldn’t just shoot everything how on earth would we figure out what we WOULD shoot? The answer to that is simple, figure out what we value the most. 

For Esmeralda and I, we value family over all else. We are extremely close with each other, our kids and our extended families. For us, a perfect day is one in which we get to cook and eat, or go out to the park or to the mall as a family. To be clear, when I say family I mean FAMILY! We have 10 of us in our home, from Esmeralda, myself and the babies to my 5 in-laws, our family is big and our house is ALWAYS chaotic. And we love it! So when we thought about what type of photography we wanted to specialize in it really was a no-brainer; Family photography (still no clue if I’m using the semi-colon correctly but it felt right…) So, with the “what” sorted out, next came the question of why ( and this is where we finally make it back to the topic I started a few paragraphs back). 

Family photography for us is the perfect blend of love and chaos that defines our own lives. Specializing in photographing families allows us to connect with our clients on a deep level that only parents can fully understand. As parents ourselves we understand the fragility of the memories of childhood for both ourselves and our children. It seems as though every time I blink our children change significantly and morph into new humans that are equally as beautiful, but entirely different than who they were just moments before. Long gone are the days of my oldest looking up at me, with her brilliant blue eyes and perfectly chubby face saying “but Daddy, I’m cute”, in attempts to get out of punishment for breaking a plate that she was specifically told like a thousand damn times not to touch…ahhh the irritation still strong 6 years later( I couldn’t even btw, I literally just blinked a few times, turned around and walked away. I lost that round. She knew and so did I). These days my oldest is 8 going on 18, full of moody angst like she’s caught living in a Nirvana song while walking around the house dabbing (still don’t understand what the point of that even is). While she is still very much my baby princess, I only now see those shimmers of who she once was on the rare occasion that they accidentally slip out. You see back then, like many, we didn’t understand the value of photography. We looked at the COST of the session and falsely equated that with the value of the images. So because our estimation of value was skewed, we now only have a few iPhone images that have made it through the years without being accidentally deleted lost. What we understand now is that the cost of the session was a drop in the bucket in comparison to the value that we lost by not having those memories immortalized. I cannot go back in time and capture those memories I’ve lost. I can only hope that those remaining memories hold firm for the entire duration of my life. Those memories mean more to me than any cost that may have been associated with it at the time. Unfortunately for me, it’s too late now. The good news is, we had two backup babies! While we did fail to understand the fragility memories and the harshness of time back then, we get it now. Ultimately, it’s what has driven us to this world of family photography. We now understand our love of each other and our children is not defined by grand gestures or big gifts. It is defined by those fleeting moments that nearly go unnoticed. Those moments between moments that put a smile on your face and bring a tear to your eye. The way your husband makes poorly timed (and in my case highly inappropriate) jokes at just the right, or wrong, time. The way your toddler walks around the house singing Cocomelon songs at the top of her lungs. They way your wife looks at you with gentle, reassuring eyes when she just knows that you are at your breaking point. Those moments are the “why” behind our love and why we are, and always will be, family photographers first and foremost. We connect with families that don’t want those super posed images with perfectly coordinated everything. If that is what you want, great! There are amazing Photographers out there that can help you with that, we’re just not them. We focus on capturing those tiny fleeting moments that encapsulate the love you have for your family but can’t put to words. We want those families that are looking to capture love, honestly and fully. Not afraid to be themselves completely, whether a camera is fixed on them or not. Those families that want to just have an amazing day out with those they Iove while we buzz around catching little moments that made the day special. If that’s what you’re looking for, please reach out we would love love love to work with you!

So to wrap this whole thing up, time is moving forward with or without your consent. You can choose to ignore it and hope to remember those precious, fleeting moments or you can choose to document them and ensure that they will never be forgotten. There in lies the true value of photography. It is not about the images themselves but rather the meaning and emotion tied to them. The emotion that links us to the memories of the past defines our bonds to our loved ones and helps our children shape their understanding of how to navigate this world. The choice to preserve those memories or not is undeniably yours to make. I only seek to remind you that memories are extremely fragile and are all but guaranteed to fade as we age. The decision you make today will effect you for years to come. For me, the choice is clear. I choose to preserve those memories as a shinning portrayal of my love and dedication to my family so as to serve as reminder to them that daddy did, and always will love them. When you are ready to make the same choice, Esmeralda and I will be here to help.

-Dan