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Q&A with Jenny Solar

I have a question for both you because I've shot families before. Have you ever had to do a head swap? Yes. How about you, Jenny? Uh, maybe one time. But I thought that talented Photoshopped e did a lot more like when I was first starting. I haven't done one in a few years because I've gotten to the point that I I'm okay with, like, first, I would like everyone has to look for now. I'm okay. If it's like one of the little kids laughing and dad and yeah, so, yeah, we shoot for our So we don't shoot formal photos. Usually we rarely have photos of people looking at the camera. So a lot of times, people are looking at each other and laughing or engaged. So that makes head swabs, you know, minimum all. And we actually, usually we're shooting. We take a whole bunch of photos in a series, so we may shoot off 30 or 40 images in the Siri's and then pick the best, like, four or five. So all the ones where you might have ah potential need for a head swap, We just don't even keep them perfect. Coo...

l. Hey, Jenny. We talked Teoh Shannon earlier. We asked her this question. So we'd like to ask you is well on. But this is from Josh. With the digital, What do you do with kids that just don't want to be there and are just kind of sour and really, really rough ones that gonna help wrangle into the photograph? Okay. Usually I make that child my priority. A lot of times and kids were being difficult. It's I mean, I know this from my own Children. It's sometimes they want attention. Um, and I've found Teoh that some kids will not behave when their parent is around like, Especially if you have the mom who, um, well intentioned. Because I know I do this when we get our family pictures taken. But I'm so worried like my kids are behaving. They're not behaving. You need to listen. You're not listening to her. You need to sit down. I'll actually go off just me in that child. Um, you know, like, 20 feet away, somewhere where we can have alone time and then kind of refocus and get that child attention and cooperation again. And then once we have Once I have their cooperation back. You know, I'm a photograph them alone to get that cooperation back, and then we'll bring him back into the group. And then sometimes Teoh will maybe do something a little bit wild and rowdy because a lot of times kids who were misbehaving, they have a lot of pent up energy. So we may be may do something where we have the rest of the family sitting down. And, you know, like I was a toddler young kid. Like I come running in with a kid. My God, and drop them in the last and back there like you and it running, and I tickle them. You're just active things where or letting. Or maybe we're not going to sit here. We're gonna actually do something like, have the family run around or play tag or do something engaging and wear them out a little bit. Awesome. I love that. Hey, so for both you guys, how do you when you're dealing with families, how do you avoid them all showing up in the same red shirt? So what kind of advice do you give for wardrobe? Good guidelines. So mine. We talk about that I'll know first if they're going to show up. Right shirts. I'm prepared because mine is all I know exactly. Just as important is like knowing where we're gonna meet. I also know exactly what they're all gonna be. Be wearing it so far. Although that could make a cute shoot, I guess there are. Go ahead. I would say I mean, we definitely talked to people ahead of time, But we also, um there have been a handful of times throughout the years where somebody shown up, like in matching something obnoxious. We just don't put those images out into the Internet anywhere, so you won't find them. I mean, you won't find them in our portfolio on our website. You won't find them honorable. You won't find them on her Facebook page because if you show it, then people will want you to shoot that. So we never show those ism. And it's probably been three or four years since we had anybody show up. But we did actually have a family do that Jeans and black T shirts one time, and I was like, Oh my God, we just didn't show the image just anywhere. But it's also something that we talked to people about. Most of our clients will say like, Oh, I am no idea what I should what we should wear, in which point I say when you're thinking about it, this is not mine. I stole this from someone told me this a long time ago. But when you think about putting together outfits for a family like think about what would coordinate if you were gonna wear it all of the different items and the kind of spread that out among among the family, that's a good idea. Yeah, I normally, when people need suggestions and I can't be hands on, I usually say Pick your cute It's outfit, which is usually like the little girl's dress, and I'm like each person should coordinate with her, but not with each other. So, like if she's wearing a dress that like red and blue and all of green and yellow, then maybe Dad's wearing jeans but, like has yellow on his shirt. And then maybe Mom has like an olive green dress on, so it like coordinates at the end of the day. But it's not like everybody's Yeah, yeah, yeah lately, Dio a lot of the families that we've been shooting have actually been photographers. So most of the photographers who have followed our work the higher s know better than to show up matching that house Dio and we'll Jenny, will you do up multiple outfit changes during a photo shoot? We will. We often don't cause a lot of times we're working with young kids, and it's like if you change their outfit some, sometimes with little kids, if they're being really good, if you change something like a location or an outfit that can throw off everything their whole mojo. Um, so we give the option. But you usually we don't just because we like to keep rolling with good mo mentum, But it can also be someone's having a meltdown. That could be a good way to kind of change. The momentum to is maybe change our outfitter, change your location. Great. Thank you. I think we have a question or two from studio audience. I would ask you guys bowled. What says gallery that you giving clients typically like when you're setting up your client expectations when you're booking the session, they ask, you know what do we get how many air you including in their final collection. And also do people do you find people try to do haggling and pricing kind of things that as a business owner, you know you have to encounter, but they're not necessarily the most comfortable conversation. Well, like Jenny said before, she's like in a Siri's will take like, 40 shots and show for. That's one thing I have really learned as time has gone on is just show it. You would be proud to put on Facebook like they don't need to see every single, so I usually tell them they also have 40 to 50. But sometimes I mean, if all the shots are great, I might give him 80. So it's not Yeah, and yeah, there's Peg where sometimes I don't experience that. Yes, um, that's something I I always say, like every rule I have in my business was based on someone burning me, So I've got I have gotten more and more strict over the years toe where now there really isn't handling. If there's any price dropped, it's because I want to do it for the family. Um, it's just a given like Well, this is what it costs. Do you want to do it or not? Like it's not. Yeah. I don't know. What do you Go ahead, Jenny. Yeah, Um, anymore. We don't really get people haggling necessarily. Mostly get people who either say I can afford that where I can't afford that. So, um, we haven't had a lot of now when we were newer, we definitely had a lot of people like, This is our price. Oh, what? Can you do it for? Half of that? Well, no, actually, we can't. Um, so we you know, And now right now are the way that we do. Our portrait is shooting burn right now because a lot of our family portrait zehr happening on the road. We're traveling and a lot of families were shooting. They're photographers, so we don't really need to sell them canvases and really awesome books, because they can get their own. Um, and I think that most of the you know, anyone who is a professional photographer has respect for you know what we're charging And they know the value behind hiring a professional. So that helps as faras how many images we deliver. We typically, uh, shoot a lot and give a lot, Uh, and with shooting burn, I mean, we're not expecting them to come in and try to narrow down to 15 images for an album or something like that. So we typically deliver, I would say, between 75 100 images. But again, a lot of our sessions are more documentary and lifestyle, and so you end up with a lot more variety that way. But if you were doing strictly like portrait type session cool, thank you. Hey, Jenny. One final question before we click off any any marching orders that you can give to aspiring, you know, advice to aspiring family photographers, I would say Get out there and shoot every single day, like with you probably shot families for I would say 3 to 4 years before we even got decent like that may be an exaggeration that like it, the more you shoot, the quicker you improve. I mean, it's just it's a whole, like 10,000 hours to master craft thing, Um, so just get out there and shoot, Even if you're shooting your best friends, family for free or chasing your Children around in your backyard. Whatever is, get out there and shoot, and then figure out your own style. I think I don't know if people still do this city mortar. When we were first starting, you know, it was like, you find somebody you admire, and then you copy that, and you try to, you know, you're inspired to be just like them. Well, the reason that people are gonna hire you is you're just like you. And if you have a unique and a unique style and so I kind of wish maybe when we got started that we knew a little bit better and didn't try to be like everybody else and maybe just tried to be like ourselves is now we have a unique style. That's why people want to hire us. Because you don't want to be the one who is getting hired is your cheapest, because that's not sustainable. Thanks, Danny Shannon. Thank you. That was wonderful. Always great. I will. A round of applause, guys. So we have speaking of happy families, we have a happy family right next door that we are going to photograph during our next segment. So can we talk a little bit about what? You're going to try to company. Yeah, let me get back to me. Um, so yeah, so we have a family for four. Little's, uh, ranging in age. I thought the oldest was it. Says who is? Almost 10. She's almost 10 down to nine months old, so we have a whole whole range. I did get a questionnaire filled out by this family to style. Do you guys want me just really quick? Go through. And only the two oldest one's answered since the other two are not speaking and they just would not cooperate. I don't know how today is gonna go. Um, but the same questions that we I asked earlier of Woolen Olivia. Where's your favorite place to have your picture taken? Um, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, and a Zlin. I believe that's how you saw it. Say her name, right? Hazel in Brooklyn Amusement park or a park would be fun. Aylin Beach again. We can't take him to those places doing it. We're part of taking the pictures the most fun. Dressing up cute from the younger one blank stare. So she is a blank canvas. I can convince her of anything Do you like to dress up two exclamation points after their? Yes is. What's your favorite thing to do with friends? Hang out and talk and play on the bars. She's a gymnast. Play with them. If you could pick an adventure to go on with your family, what would you pick? Go on a treasure hunt or go to space? That would be a fun photo shoot. What's your favorite color? Blue and pink, blue and purple. We have lots of blue. You will see again. Blue clothes. It's the same Floren dot line that we're shooting. It's her limited edition. And so with all. Luckily, all the girls love Blue worked out perfectly. What's your favorite toy board Games? Barbies, Um, in Mom kind of winning. And both girls were gymnast continually doing handstands, cartwheels, handsprings. And they enjoy reading both love horses for the parents. Um, so it looks like I don't know if Mom got it. That she said that, um, she has a wedding ring that was her grandmother's. And so it has a lot of sentimental meaning because her grandfather was the first man in her life and he passed away when she was when she was little. Um, so she thinks about it all the time, so she thought it might be cool to have that ring. Um, And so this is what I was talking about when I asked about quirks or unique things that would love to see captured. I love genuine belly laughs. Oh, my girls air giggling My day gets brighter instantly. And I looked like you hear stuff like that, you like? Okay, this is gonna be perfect. We're just gonna play and have fun. Um, do we have any of you have new rituals or special things that you and your kids enjoy doing together? We pray together daily and nightly. We love doing ticket things together as a family. Um, they're always together. I said, unless the girls were at school, so they must goes, or if they do, they're always, always together. So that's a nice That's a nice thing. It kind of leads into letting you know that you're probably gonna have a cuddly family, a family that you can ask to get close and, um, not have any uncomfortable uncomfortable. That's what's your family style. We don't really have a style. The girls are often in two twos and pink eye, more of foot pops and skinny jeans. Girl with my hair pulled back all of the time. My husband just dresses like a boy, Um, and so she does say that she wants to use the images for display and making albums. That kind of gives me an idea like album. So I wanted something a little bit storytelling. Or it would be nice to do some collages that kind of lend themselves well to page layout. Same with displace. I'm I'll concentrate when I take pictures of the kids making sure in my head that, like, if I got individuals of each of the kids with those lay nicely when they do a display with those. So it's nice to know beforehand that they do plan on doing it in that way. And then, um, I asked about the previous family sessions, and she said she's not a fan of rigid posing. She likes photo juillet, photo journalistic images, um, poses. Okay, but your favorite images there the family being together as a family, just real life. She loves details and intimacy. Um, she said in one of the sessions that she felt like the photographer and capture the emotion of the family and that made that bump her out of me or sad. So and then she just kind of went on to talk about how they love the beach and going on cruises again. Things that we can you get sand in here wear just a really goofy, fun loving, laid back, often procrastinating, Christ centered, family centered family. So I think you can kind of get a feel like I've never met them. You've never met them, but I kind of feel like I know what to expect when they walk through the door. Um, so that's that's really why I love It was funny to hear Jenny talk about their questionnaires like, So I must work. But yes, I'm just excited. I'm going to try and capture obviously the family as a unit. But like I said, I'll do individuals of each of the kids get some couple time. Do just kids, depending on how the little ones do. Like I told the mom, if the little ones aren't super into it, we'll get our quick shots of them and then let somebody take him off to go play and give them snacks and will concentrate on the bigger ones