Regular Life

We went Saturday to have Ben’s three-year portraits made, if a little late. We don’t think he’s changed much in the past couple of months, so we’re fudging a bit.

The day didn’t start well. Ben woke up very early and although he said he was hungry, he ate only a few clusters of cereal. He and I played a bit, watched a little TV, and then woke up his mommy to start her day. We all got ready in a flurry of activity that only parents or legal guardians can understand.

The picture above and those that follow almost never happened.

Ben, who skinned his knee pretty badly the day before, was very fussy about 30 minutes before we needed to leave. A Band-Aid adhered to his knee, but the large scrape peeked out from the edges of the gauze mid-section. With all that, Shannon and I both leaned toward ditching the effort. “Maybe we should just call and cancel the appointment,” she said. I encouraged her (and myself, I suppose) that Ben would do better once we got out of the house.

I told Ben he could have medicine for his knee, but not until he ate something. He willingly sat on a barstool, but was so disagreeable that I had to feed him forkfuls of the Eggo Whole-Grain toaster waffle. He said he was finished and I gave him a teaspon of the fruity orange children’s Ibuprofen. I’m pretty sure a medicine dropper full of Kool-Aid would make a heck of a placebo.

His hunger somewhat abated, Ben’s demeanor improved, but Shannon still was thinking of throwing in the towel. I told her he ate a waffle, which caught Ben’s ear.

“I want anunna waffle,” he said. His “th” sounds still give him trouble.

This one he ate by himself, Shannon and I checking on him periodically. After that, he was a whole new kid. Although Ben’s been better lately about telling us when he’s hungry instead of just whining and fussing, sometimes he regresses.

The Portrait Innovations studio had an open, inviting layout. Three of the waiting area walls each featured a 42″ Panasonic plasma screen attached to a Dell computer running Windows XP. Seated there were families and groups viewing photos shot just moments before, some engaged in light debate over which poses were worth their money. I suspected that some of the debates were not so light, but civil in the face of children and strangers.

The wall opposite the entrance consisted mostly of two large openings into the portrait studios. On the left was a family of five, all dressed in denim shorts and white Polo-style shirts, sitting on an imitation beach. On the left was a group of six women, apparently related, smiling and laughing as the photographer guided them into their next pose.

Ben made a beeline for the Lego table. Thank God for child-friendly atmospheres. During our downtime before and after our turn, I spent some time playing with him, but otherwise that table managed Ben just fine.

Our turn came up and Ben did great. The photographer obviously had worked with kids a lot. He used various tricks with a stuffed toy dog to maintain Ben’s megawatt smile. He placed the dog on his head and ask Ben to blow it off. Ben loved watching that dog fall off, and yelled, “Do it again!” each time.

Each time the photographer flipped the switch to roll up one background and lower the next, Ben pointed and said, “That’s cool!” A couple times when we waited for things to be setup, Ben ran around in circles on the background, and I chased him for a few rounds.

The photographer also had Ben kick the dog, which sent it in backward somersaults onto the top of his head, making Ben smile and look right at the camera. When he wanted the boy looking away from the camera, he handed the dog to me and I gladly made a complete idiot of myself.

That was nothing, though, compared to what my lovely wife did.

When Shannon took Ben into the bathroom to change him into another outfit, I looked around at the lighting in the studio, curious how much money they spent on it. The photographer was using a Fuji Finepix DSLR, nothing fancier than what I use. Indoor portraiture is the one area of photography where I have almost no experience (well, besides battlefield photojournalism, but I’ll glady leave that one out of my repertoire), so I’m always looking at how others do it.

I heard Ben wailing as the bathroom door opened. I looked over and saw Shannon, who was saying, “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Ben’s face was a stream of tears over skin red with suffering. His loud cry filled the waiting area and the studios. I figured that was about it for the day, and took stock of where our things were so we could quickly make room for the next customers.

As Ben approached I squatted down and asked him what happened. He said he hurt his head, and then pointed at his left foot. His big toenail showed a white crease where it obviously had folded back, and the tip of his toe was bleeding.

“Oh, no, I guess I hit his head and his toe with the door,” Shannon said.

That’s my girl. K - L - utzy.

Thanks in large part to the photographer’s antics, Ben quickly was laughing as I wiped away his tears, and we got some good shots after that. The momentum was interrupted once when the photographer had us switch studios (where the other props were), and then he realized he had the wrong camera.

Add to that Ben’s tendency to grab his nether region (more on that later), and it was a more challenging time. The photographer cleverly asked Ben to put his hands in his pockets, and although he tried to get Ben to leave his thumbs sticking out for some “cool” factor, the boy improvised and gave us our favorite shot of the day.

For about $100, we ended up with 26 sheets comprised of six poses and two outfits. Each sheet can be one big print, two 5×7’s, four 3×5’s, or eight wallets. We also got a free 10×13. That’s a pretty good deal for the sittings and the prints. Plus, we got a CD with all the photos on it. One folder contains .jpg’s big enough for e-mail (and probably wallets or 3×5’s, too), and another folder contains the photos in an encrypted format that only PI’s computers can read and use. That way, we have to take it back to them for high-quality enlargements. Part of me thinks that’s very clever, and another part of me says, “Hey, I paid for the photos, so what gives?” But, it’s a copyright issue. They composed the shots, in their studio, using their equipment, with their expertise. Even if I had the equipment (for studio photography) I don’t think we would have been creative enough to keep Ben posing and smiling all that time.

We sat at the impressive 42″ plasma as the photographer clicked and dragged the pictures right into our hearts. His customer service skills were impeccable, and our prints were ready to take home about 20 minutes after we made our selections.

Recommendation for Portrait Innovations

I can’t recommend this place enough.

For the first two birthdays and at least one spring, we took Ben to Sears, where the quality had improved greatly since Shannon and I had our pictures made there in the early ’90’s. The digital revolution has allowed even low-budget portrait studios to turn mediocre photographs into acceptable fare. Cropping of wide or just plain bad compositions can make up for average skills. Admittedly, a wriggling infant or toddler makes grabbing the perfect shot very difficult, so a little “Photochopping” is forgivable. To be fair, I always try to note when I’ve cropped, retouched, or in some other way altered a picture.

Surprisingly, with the superior photos and the more modern technology, PI was much cheaper than Sears by the time we got all those prints. We’ll go back there next time if we haven’t started doing it ourselves by then.

As a bonus, Ben did not try to kick Lexie and make her land on my head when we got home.

(all photos in this post by Portrait Innovations)

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