66) Family Portrait

This afternoon, my family (minus Max who is studying/frolicking in Korea for the summer) drove to an obscure part of San Francisco to meet with a photographer at his studio. My parents had won a free session with him at some charity auction, so he asked us to come by so he could "get to know us."

The first sign of trouble was the photographer's booklet (all black and white) that my parents had received upon winning. On the first two pages, cooing babies lie naked on their sides facing the camera, the backgrounds softly blurred. Next comes the angelic toddlers, embracing each other while smiling ear to ear, or captured mid-hoist. Think Anne Geddes meets the Lion King opening sequence. Once we got inside the studio, it was more of the same - parents nibbling toes, sisters caught having a tea party, and snuggled-up family portraits as far as the eye could see.

Don't get me wrong - they were gorgeous pictures. The disconnect is that Max, Dylan and I are 19, 20 and 24 respectively. Gone are the days of the dogpile of siblings (plus, we already have one of those portraits sitting on the piano), of the three of us draping casually in a tree. Thus, my suggestion at our meet and greet was that these photos be a little more artsy and a little less sentimental.

Thinking back, I hope I didn't offend him by implying that his pictures aren't artsy. And what are family portraits, if not sentimental? My point is this. Posed photography - the very notion of a "portrait" - implies a stagedness. This flies with babies and young children who don't know better. But what about a family of adults? A portrait should capture not only what we all looked like, but also the nuances of our relationships with one another. That's what's so interesting about families as they age. As the children become fully formed adults, relationships move beyond familial ties - friend, confidant, guardian, competitor, etc.

I'm not really sure what I want these photos to look like, but I have a feeling it will push this photographer out of his comfort zone.