“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” —Robert J. Quillen
My family has always been incredibly supportive of my photography goals. They have all at one point or another allowed me to harass them into being subjects for me; sometimes willingly in a family session or less happily during candid moments at family cookouts. In all of these experiences one of my favorites has been an in-studio portrait session my mother agreed to.
As I’m sure many mothers can confirm, it seems that moms naturally over time become the family photographers, videographers, scrapbookers and memory keepers. It’s a rare but fun experience to get a mom in front of the lens and particularly special to photograph my own.
Throughout the session we talked, joked and reminisced. She was so patient as I learned my settings, the best lighting angles and fumbled with all my equipment I had just bought.
It was reminiscent of all the times I had tried something with her watchful gaze helping me along. Whether that was homework, cooking or sports she was always present to encourage and support even when I’d make mistakes or burn something. In particular whenever I had burnt the toast or grilled cheese became too crispy my mom would swear she that she didn’t mind the burnt flavor. Her claim was always so convincing that suddenly I was doing HER the favor by letting her eat the ruined food.
Throughout the shoot as we laughed and I learned how to use my new equipment this past memory came in strong and yet again my sweet mother helped me feel like in all my bumbling that I was doing her the favor.
My goal in this session was to learn more about studio photography and to hopefully also capture my mom’s personality. If nothing else, I don’t think I burnt the toast this time and I’m hopeful that I was able to do justice to my mother’s spark of a personality.
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