10 Reasons A Mini-Session Will Never Capture Your Family’s Personality
What is a mini session? A mini session is a portrait session, where you prepare for the portrait as normal, but you receive a reduced number of images or a reduced service. The title “Mini-Session” can sound attractive, but when we take a look beyond the name its easy to see why the service will fail to capture your family’s true personality. What if hairdressers offered mini haircuts? It's like a regular haircut, but they just trim a fraction of the hair. What if lawyers offered mini contracts? It's like a regular contract, it just doesn't cover all the details. Mini means you leave without your needs being met. When it comes to your family's history, is that a risk worth taking?
1) Mini sessions are typically outdoors where wind and super sunny or super cloudy weather can greatly affect the quality of your portraits. Imagine taking the time to get everyone ready only to have your efforts ruined by inclement weather. Imagine not being able to see your family's eyes in your portrait which often happens when the lighting is bad. Your family’s precious memories should be created in an environment where the lighting is controlled so that you can connect with the eyes of your loved ones.
2) Mini sessions are typically run by one poor photographer who is attempting to facilitate several clients. Not only can the photographer be overwhelmed on the day of the session, but also overwhelmed when it comes to delivering the images. The result is you don’t receive the attention to your family that you deserve at the time of the session, so you don’t look great in the images. After the session it can be incredibly frustrating to wait on a finished product by an overwhelmed solo photographer. Your family deserves a studio who understands how important it is to work in teams. A team to make sure you look amazing while being photographed, a team to help you pick your portraits out in a timely fashion, and finally a team to finish the work and deliver it to your door.
3) Centerpiece material?-while a mini session might be ok for a Christmas card or fb pic, can you really expect to have a true timeless centerpiece created in an environment that is subject to being controlled by outside influences. When I used to create work like this, it was so frustrating when you have strangers step into the background and ruin a great portrait. Just a couple of weeks ago, I watched as a photographer had posed a family on a busy street downtown with several young children. In all of the disarray of trying to make sure everyone’s shirt was straight and faces wiped, they kept having to stop and move out of the way of traffic that was cruising by on both sides of them. As a father of a toddler, I wouldn’t want to risk my family’s memories and their lives in a scenario like that! That’s why I started creating portraits in a controlled environment, where we can focus on the clothing and expressions. We choose to work in a safe, private and quiet environment, so that moms could look great themselves while they enjoy the memories being created.
4) Direction from the photographer is extremely lacking in a mini-session environment. Most photographers who offer mini sessions give little thought to giving direction to help feature your family’s personality. In fact, most just shoot & spray and hope for the best. or say something like "just be yourself" or “just do what you normally do”. How you stand, whether you sit or not is very important in how you appear on camera. How you stand, where you sit and how can also determine whether your portrait communicates a sense of togetherness or a sense of emotional distance. Your family is unique and you want a photographer who is willing to take the time to make sure you are well directed to help you look your best.
5) What to wear can make or break your family’s portrait. Mini-sessions are typically cheaper, or at least advertised as such (even though most of the time is the same price as a regular session). But since its “cheaper” you often don’t receive good direction on what to wear to look your best. Did you know choosing to wear the wrong color in a portrait can make you appear 44 pounds heavier?
6) Did you know the average child age 8-18 spends 7 hours a day looking at electronic screens? While this is a concerning statistic, its real for most American children. When I ask parents at our studio how they feel about their kid’s time on electronics, most will share that they feel its excessive or a least confess to a love-hate relationship with their kids devices. Wouldn’t it be amazing if you had a photographer who could engage your child’s imagination in such a fun way that they were able to create the most beautifully real expressions for your portrait?
7) Is a mini session better for your family or better for your photographer to book a ton of sessions? Mini sessions are set up as a booking or marketing tactic in the photo industry. They work great for the family that does portraits multiple times a year. Are they really best for families who may not have their portrait made that often? If you are the kind of parent that loves the idea of having portraits mad often, but in reality, doesn’t do them as often as you’d like, you need to avoid the mini-session. If you take the time from your busy schedule, you want to have the attention your family deserves during your portrait session. We are not the multiple times of year photographer. We see families only 4 times in a lifetime in our studio, so we understand how important it is to create the most beautiful portrait each time you visit.
8) A true professional. Did you know the average photographer photographs less than 50 sessions in a year? Out of those sessions most will be corporate, or boudoir or wedding photography. This means they have almost NO experience photographing families. Which can leave them unsure of how to pose your family so you each look phenomenal. We say we specialize in family portraits and we mean it. Our studio has created tens of thousands of FAMILY portraits. Did you know our photographers create more family portraits in a week than most photographers create in a year of shooting? We know how to help you stand so you look your best, we know how to engage your kids to get the best expressions, we know how to help your husband have the best time during the session so he looks natural and relaxed because we do this and only this hundreds of times every month.
9) Two things we hear moms say all of the time. “I had no idea these would turn out so great!” and “That was the easiest, most fun portrait we’ve ever had created!” We work with busy families and we understand how valuable your time together is, so we’ve set it up so you can view your portraits at the time of your session with your family all together. The photographs are displayed for you in an amazing presentation where you can see them floor to ceiling and wall to wall-no tiny website viewing here! This way to you can laugh and connect with each other while you pick out your photography!
10) The most photographed generation is the generation with the least amount of photographs. Mini sessions are digital events, no different than your iphone or thousands of other digital pictures that you take and never truly enjoy. Your family is wonderful and worthy of being displayed. Your family’s history deserves a better place than a hard drive. Think about this, have you ever looked through an album of family photos? All of those photos were created while on vacation, during holiday’s together…. All of those photos were taken, printed, and then put into an album. Now days we skip the “printed” part. So our memories are behind a passcode on our phones and not in an album. The question is, how will your children see their family’s history when we are no longer here to enter the password? How will they understand what life was like in 2021 when the phone battery no longer accepts a charge? We are an art-piece studio. All that means is that we make sure your family’s memories are printed in an archival process. So that your children will never have to enter a password to see their family’s history. Our portraits don’t require a charge and you don’t have to touch them to make them “turn on”. They are a constant, non verbal, reminder of what is most important in life.
11) BONUS: A portrait can be such a strong non-verbal statement of love to your family. Its perceived as a testament to that which is most important. Imagine the impact on a child's self confidence who sees the love and connection from his parents daily when he passes by a family portrait on the wall.
Your family is the centerpiece of your life. Children are just our hearts walking around outside of our bodies. This most precious gift, these most precious people in your life should be celebrated and photographed as celebrities as they are YOUR celebrities. A mini session is not the place for the unique and individual people that are your family. Our mission is to change that and to give family’s a place where their love and connection can stand out!
If we want a different result, we have to do something different that what we’ve done in the past. If you are ready to showcase your family’s love and connection…. If you are ready to capture your family’s story for today’s generation and for tomorrow’s generation, so that your children and grandchildren have a strong connection with their tribe, then visit knappfineportraits.com and click the “book now” link. Pick a time that’s convenient for you, bring your family and have a blast while creating some memories together, and a few weeks after your session, we’ll deliver a beautiful one of a kind art piece to your door.
Warmest regards,
Davy Knapp
President, Knapp Fine Portraits
Studio (806) 371-9210
Amarillo, Texas