So it’s mid-February and I’m finally ready to share some of my personal favorites from the past year. This has been a landmark year for Mischief and Laughs Photography. It was my first full year back in the Cincinnati, OH area and I was blessed to be able to reconnect with long time clients and meet many new ones as well. This year I photographed over 75 families and a whopping 32 dogs! Not too shabby considering I took about 3 months off to work on restarting my business here in our new city – things really got off on the right foot, and I’m energized for the year to come.
Beyond the sheer numbers, I’ve grown in so many ways this year. I’ve focused my efforts more on telling the stories of families through play and emotion, and less on simply documenting what people look like. I’m looking forward to offering more experience-based portrait sessions, that will give new life to my work… and make the whole process exponentially more fun for my clients! Yes, of course we can get portraits along the way, but we’ll do it through a meaningful experience that produces memories for your family.
So what did I find when I pulled all of my favorites into one folder to review and sort? Well, first off, I loved way too many pictures. 162 to be exact – way too long for a blog post! So I had to be very selective. What did I see beyond that? Pretty light, lots of color, and dogs. But more importantly, I saw connection, love and laughter. I saw photos that maybe weren’t perfect but had so much emotion in them that they were absolute perfection. I saw moms snuggling their kids, siblings cracking up together, kids caught in moments of belly laughter. I saw confidence and pride in a high school senior, and I saw the silliness of dads.
So going forward? I’m going to challenge all of my clients to be a little more connected and a little less stiff. I’m going to challenge my clients to not worry about the perfect outfits or if your hair is getting messed up. I’m going to challenge myself to keep the session fun and engaging for everyone involved. I’m going to find some awesome little spots off the beaten path where we can have fun and not worry about waiting our turn in line at the most popular parks in the city (I’m looking at you, Eden Park.) I’m going to help each of my clients come up with something super personal for their session, a way that we can really make memories for your fam
ily.
