What Actually Happens When You Book a Session With Me

I think there's a version of a photo session that lives in a lot of people's heads. A photographer barking directions, a lot of awkward standing around, someone telling you to angle your chin down and to the left while you try to look natural and failing completely.

That is not what happens when you book with me. Not even close.

Let me walk you through what it actually looks like.

First, we just hang out.

I mean this literally. When we first get together I am not immediately pulling out my camera and pointing it at your face. We talk. We move around the space. We figure out the vibe together. (Oh also we will have already chatted via text, phone or zoom so this isn't our first time meeting) I want the adrenaline to settle before we do anything else because the nervous, stiff version of you is not the version I'm here to photograph. Also I will almost certainly show you photos of my dog Arlo at some point during this part. It's just who I am.

Then I give you something to do — not something to be.

I don't do poses. I do prompts. There's a big difference. A pose is "stand here and look at the camera." A prompt is "tell them a secret" or "walk toward that tree" or "show me how you actually hug each other." One produces a photo. The other produces a memory.

When you have something to do with your body, your hands find a natural place to be. Your face does something real. You stop thinking about how you look and start thinking about the moment you're in — and that's exactly when I take the photo.

I stay out of the way.

Documentary style photography means I'm watching more than I'm directing. I'm looking for the thing that's already there — the genuine laugh, the quiet moment, the look between two people that says everything without a single word. You can't manufacture those. You can only catch them.

Which means a big part of my job is just being present enough to notice when something real is happening and being fast enough to catch it before it's gone.

After we shoot, I disappear for a bit.

I go through everything and curate a gallery that tells the story of our time together. I'm not over-processing. I'm not slapping a filter on everything. I'm looking for the ones that feel true to who you are and what the day actually felt like.

You'll always know upfront how long that's going to take. No chasing me down, no wondering where your photos are.

That's it. That's the whole thing. No cheese, no stiff poses, no telling you to smile bigger. Just a real session that produces photos you're actually going to want to look at for the rest of your life.

Until next time :)

Michaela