The Girl With The Red Bow

About a month ago I got a phone call from a lady in North Carolina. She had stumbled over my blog, and was wondering if I could take photos of her two adopted daughters. She told me that the girls (twins) had had a very rough life prior to their adoption, and she wanted me to capture that in my photos. She had seen the photos I posted of my kids on this website, and liked my no-smiling policy that I occasionally enforce on them.

I don’t know about you, but every time I am asked to take photos of someone, they want me to make them look as happy and joyful as possible. And, if by mistake, I take a snapshot of them not smiling, or catch them off guard, that photo ends up in the “delete-immediately” pile. However, this lady wanted me to do exactly what 99.9% of my clients pay me not to do.

As you can imagine, I was humbled that she thought that I could pull it off, and immensely excited that I could actually take photos of a real person rather than a posed body with a mouth shaped like the bottom part of a semi-circle. I felt what Van Gogh must have felt when his one and only buyer purchased a painting from him.

A few minutes after I hung up the phone, however, it occurred to me that I was going to have to to make an actual “artistic portrait” of a complete stranger. And on top of that, they were traveling from North Carolina to Texas and decided to detour just so that I get to take their photos. And on top of that, they were twins, only 10 years old. I was terrified.

Until I realized that I had overestimated my part in the whole “artistic portrait” deal. Other than setting up the lighting and pressing the plastic shutter button, I figured that my part was just as small as the person who pulls the curtain at a theater play.

A few minutes after I met the girls at the studio, I started taking a few test shots of Claire (not pictured here). And just like everyone else does, she gave me the most wonderful, happy, and joyful smile. She almost convinced me that her mother had exaggerated when she said that the girls had been through some deeply troubling stuff. However, when I told Claire that the photos were just tests, she stopped smiling and I was shocked to see a completely different person in front of me. This person looked more like a soldier who had seen an incredible amount of violence and injustice. Although I don’t think it is as striking as the photo below, you can see one of the photos I took of Claire here.

Next came Sofia. Just like her sister, as soon as I pointed the camera at her, she smiled joyfully and with so much charm. And, just like Claire, when I asked her if I could take a few photos of her not smiling, her expression changed completely. I took about 10 photos in a row, and when I looked at my camera to see how the lighting looked, I saw the photo below, and I was speechless. The way she held her head, the way she half-smiled, the way her eyes gaze well past me, and the striking color of her outfit… all these things combined in one picture made me feel utterly insignificant.

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I have been patiently waiting for an opportune time to work on this photo and to talk about it. To me, it speaks volumes and I find myself staring at it for minutes at a time, even after I worked on it for a couple of hours. If the photo doesn’t have this effect on you, no worries, I won’t get offended ;). After all, if all art had an equally powerful impact on everyone, we wouldn’t make much progress.

Technical Stuff: Shot with my Nikon D300 and the 50mm f/1.8 G at f/4.5. Lighting setup: Nikon SB900 flash shot through the 64″ Paul C. Buff PLM camera top-left, and a gold reflector in front of the camera, slightly to the right.