Little Magic Misses // Pittsburgh Children's Photographer
I hope that in these strange times you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday! I spent the whole day cooking and sipping wine with my pod, my partner and our three, beautiful kitties (wine was only for us, but don’t worry, turkey was shared with them) and passed out on the couch promptly at 8:30 PM. I have so very much that I am thankful for. We even had a little group text going with myself and all of my cousins, who still usually have our own “kids’ table” at our Thanksgiving gathering despite being in our thirties. It was nice to still be together in a way, even when apart. One of the things that I am most thankful for this year is you, all of you. This was the year that I was able to finally leave my part time job behind and focus exclusively on POSE PGH. You enabled that. I met so many incredible new families, and I am beyond excited for what the future holds for us.
This family, in particular, I feel so blessed to have gotten to work with. This session was my very first one back in the studio after the Covid shutdowns, and I could not have returned on a higher note. Madeline, 13 years old, and Emma, 9 years old, are gorgeous, talented dancers with good hearts and bright personalities. Their dad loves the song “Little Miss Magic” by Jimmy Buffett, and their mama was hoping to conceptually incorporate it into their Editorial Session as a surprise for him. (This song is such a gorgeous tribute from a father to his daughter. Highly recommend giving it a listen.) How fun! I love a good challenge! So, I listened to the song a few times and put on my thinking cap.
The three words that mom chose to describe the session for me were an absolute gift for an artist. Create something unconventional and artistic? Yes, please! I never want to go too literal - I want to feel the song and the lyrics in the images that I create, almost like miniature music video stills. The first lyric that really popped out at me was “She loves to ride into town with the top down, feel that warm breeze on her gentle skin. She is my next of kin.” From this, I envisioned the girls in portraits together bathed in warm, glowy light with their hair blowing in the breeze. Now, to bring in the “magic.” This one had me stumped for a little. How can I physically manifest “magic?” Aha! Glitter! Once that fell into place, it was off to the races for my brain. I immediately saw flashes of images of the girls with their hands covered in glitter, posed gracefully around their faces and leaps with glitter flying in the air (another lyric is “one day she's gonna learn how to fly”). I also wanted to create images of them spreading the glitter/their magic for others. But, these sisters have very different interests and personalities, and I always want to tie that in, too. Madeline is a teenager, now, artistic and into fashion, a fan of the horror genre. Emma is happy-go-lucky, crafty, and loves the outdoors. I wanted to show this duality through a visual yin and yang of sorts, with their magic being the element that connects the two. For Madeline, I wanted to go darker and more mature with a darker gray background and black glitter - a little more “witchy” on the magic scale. I wanted Emma’s to be light and effervescent, bright silver and rainbow glitter on a white background. I also included a final image of their glittery hands united to further emphasize that through their differences, there is a beautiful unity.
We ended up printing these in several different mediums that were perfect for the individual images. The glowy image of the girls together was right at home as an acrylic block portrait. The unified glittery hand image was soft and lovely as a canvas gallery wrap. And, the album we created from the full session is destined to become a sample for my studio, because I love it dearly. I am so, so grateful that I got to work with these Little Magic Misses and their wonderful Mama, and like Jimmy and their dad, I can’t wait to see what they’re “gonna be.”
Three words to describe the session: Artistic, Innovative, Unconventional
(All of my portrait clients choose three words from a list of how they'd like to describe their finished images. You can click on any of the three words at the bottom of this post by the little tag icon to see past sessions that chose the same word. You can also see how different combinations of words leads to the creation of different images.)
