Many years ago when I first started considering photography as a career path, I was lucky enough to meet and have a conversation with, a very talented and award winning NYC photographer, Lanola Kathleen Stone. She answered many of my initial questions and also gave me several great pieces of advice. One of those suggestions was to study great photographers and to find photographers that inspire me.

I was an American Studies major in college, and my humanities classes often turned out to be my favorite. As a student, I loved digging into an individual artist or writer’s work. and analyzing it with my classmates and professors. As a teenager, I was very drawn to films and the craft of filmmaking. I loved watching historical and biographical documentaries.

I remember watching a film on PBS about the Kennedy family and was enamored with the original video footage and still photographs of the Kennedys. I especially enjoyed footage or photographs of their family at home, on vacation or with their children. It felt like a small, behind the scenes glimpse, into their lifestyle, but these images were much more elevated than the average photos of family life. I started reviewing more photos of the Kennedy family and found that many of the photos that I was the most drawn to, were all the work of photographer Mark Shaw.

As I studied his photographs, I found Shaw to be adept at capturing natural moments in a very artful way. You can view some of this work here. I loved both his color and black and white work and found both to be unique and thoughtful with amazing attention to composition, expression and moment. I discovered he had worked as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar and also freelanced for LIFE magazine. It was on a LIFE assignment that he was assigned to photograph a story on Jackie and later became a personal family friend as well as the Kennedy’s unofficial family photographer. I also discovered he photographed many film celebrities and icons including, Audrey Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Danny Kaye, Cary Grant, Pablo Picasso, Yves St Laurent and Coco Chanel.

Here’s some thoughts on Mark Shaw’s photographs of Audrey Hepburn during the filming of Sabrina by author Juliet Cuming:

“The revealing, true-to-life photos that Mark took of Audrey are typical of his work and his photographic philosophy. He called his favorite pictures "snapshots." He preferred shooting on location to shooting in a studio—even though most of his financial success came from big ad campaigns, much of which was studio work. He liked a natural look and in order to keep his subjects relaxed he worked with as little photographic equipment as possible.”

— Charmed by Audrey: Life on the Set of Sabrina

This description of his work resonates with what I aim for in my own photography work. I really prize natural, genuine moments. Even in more formal portrait work, I really value natural and genuine expressions and postures and Shaw really seems to be a master of this skill. I also love how Shaw uses the natural environment to be a part of the story in his images. His photos of the Kennedy’s inspire me in my day in the life photography work.

Every artist, writer, musician, poet etc. often has many influences that inspire their work and I’ve wanted to share a little about some of my own personal influences. I strive to be as thoughtful and intentional as Shaw in considering the composition of my images and also in anticipating moments of genuine feeling and expression. I find inspiration in his focus on family life, and humor, as well as in his approach to color and natural posing in more formal portraits. I love how he elevates and makes art of simple, natural human moments.

I hope to share more photographer’s, artist’s, writer's and musician’s work that inspires me in the future. Let me know if there is anything you want to hear about.

Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend!

See some of Shaw’s celebrity work here including the photos referenced above of Audrey Hepburn.

See some of Lanola Kathleen Stone’s work here and here.

“If January is the month of change, February is the month of lasting change. January is for dreamers… February is for doers.”
— Marc Parent

Here’s a few suggestions for you February doers looking for family friendly activities in NYC:

Start with Art at the Met

Kids Week at the Intrepid Museum Feb 19-26

Jurassic World Live Tour Feb 20-23

Len Cabral Presents Stories for a Winter’s Day Feb 12

World’s Beyond Earth

Ready to Skate Story Time ends Feb 22

Broadway Week 2 for 1 tickets ends Feb 27

Access Workshops for Children, NYC Ballet Feb 12 & 26

In Motion Workshops, NYC Ballet Feb 12

Here’s a few suggestions for arts & culture lovers:

Gwendolyn Brooks: A Poet’s Work in Community Jan 28—June 5

I first discovered Gwendolyn Brooks when I was assigned to present on her poem Kitchenette Building in my university literature class. Since then I’ve really enjoyed exploring her other work and purchased this collection in a little used bookstore when I was visiting New Haven, Connecticut. I’m excited to catch this exhibit addressing her political and social impact at the beautiful Morgan Library.

En Foco: The New York City Puerto Rican Experience, El Museo De Barrio until Feb 27

The Mandala Lab at the Rubin Museum Open till October 1, 2031

Watch the video after following the link to get a sense of what the experience is like. From the museum website: “Inspired by powerful Buddhist principles, the Mandala Lab features five thought-provoking, playful experiences—including videos, scents, sculpture, and curated percussion instruments—that guide you along an inner journey focused on self-awareness and awareness of others. See, smell, touch, and breathe your way through the space, designed to inspire connection, empathy, and learning.”

Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art

There’s a Walt Disney exhibit at the Met for the first time ever. Learn more about it here.

The Color of a Flea’s Eye, New York Public Library

From the NY Public Library website:

“Intrigued by the Picture Collection since childhood, the artist Taryn Simon embarked in 2012 on an overarching study of the Collection itself. Starting with subject folders from the Collection’s open stacks—Handshaking, Police, Oxygen, Broken Objects, Abandoned Buildings & Towns, and Financial Panics, among others—she arranged and documented their physical contents in large-format photographs, overlapping loosely associated images into tableaux that suggest abstract color fields, neural networks, or tiled search results. For Simon, the act of photography also suspended the Collection in its flux, making explicit the unexpected meaning often derived from its accidental juxtapositions. Simon’s photographs reveal the Collection to be an inadvertent recorder of changing mores, and discloses latent fault lines of power, race, and gender. At the same time, the works point to the invisible hands behind seemingly neutral systems of image-gathering, locating an unlikely futurity in the past.”

If you have any additional recommendations feel free to leave them in the comments.

Have a great weekend!

“I am very much aware of my own double self . . . The well-known one is very under control; everything is planned and very secure. The unknown one can be very unpleasant. I think this side is responsible for all the creative work . . . he is in touch with the child.” –Ingmar Bergman

Here are some of my answers to FAQ about Day in the Life sessions that will help you prepare for a meaningful day. If you have any additional questions please share them in the comments. 

How do I prepare for a Day in the Life Session? 

First, here are a few things you don’t need to do to prepare for your session: you don’t need to buy new outfits for your family, you don’t need to bribe your kids to behave for the photos, you don’t need to clean every corner of your home and make all the beds, you don’t need to plan a day of expensive, out of the ordinary activities for you and your family. 

This is what I would recommend to prepare:

Sit down with your kids and explain the process of a day in the life session to them. Explain that a photographer will be coming to photograph the family for the day. Tell them this is a unique kind of portrait experience–they just get to hang out and have fun with the family for a day and I’ll be tagging along to enjoy the day with them and take photos along the way. Explain that the photos will be photojournalistic in style, which means that nothing is posed or staged like traditional photos. I won’t be asking them to smile or stand still or anything at all. Let them know that this kind of session is about telling a story with a variety of images from the day.

Resist the urge to overly plan your day, or organize your entire household before your session, unless that is a routine part of your life. Allow your real life to be present for the camera. Many of my favorite images from day in the life sessions are the simple routine interactions that happen everyday in mundane, imperfect, and even messy settings. The more you can be in the moment, and embrace imperfection, the more you will love your photos.

There’s no need to coordinate outfits. Again, this is not a typical photo shoot. If you wouldn’t normally coordinate your entire family’s outfits on a regular day, don’t do it for a day in the life session. During one of my day in the life sessions the kids were wearing mis-matched clothing because it was mis-matched clothing day at school. In another, a little girl wore a tutu that she typically dressed up in several days a week. If you have kids that like to pick out their own outfits everyday this is perfectly okay. Embrace your everyday wardrobes.

Get excited to spend some time with your family and enjoy their company. Get excited to fit a photo session in your family’s schedule that won’t take any time away from your regular schedule and is entirely flexible. Many of my clients ask me what I would like to have them do for their day in the life session, and I always turn the question back to them. What would you do on a regular weekday or weekend with your family? Would you wake up the kids, make breakfast, do the dishes, watch Saturday morning cartoons, do the laundry, take the kids to the park or playground, ride bikes, make dinner, get take-out, brush teeth, read bedtime stories, etc? It doesn’t need to be anything out of the ordinary unless out of the ordinary things are a part of your routine. Weekends might be a day you do things that are a little outside your weekday routine and plan more specialized activities. These can be good days to plan your session as the family is often spending more time together. Live your everyday life on the day of your session–this is what I’m trying to capture, not an idealized version of what you would do on the most perfect day you can imagine. Be as flexible on the day of your shoot as you would be on a normal day: snow day and you want to go sledding with your kids? Great! I’ll come along. Shift your mindset from what you normally gear up to face at a traditional portrait session––we have all been conditioned to be aware of and perform for the camera, to make things look perfect. I want you to unlearn that instinct and forget the camera is there. If you are able to shift your focus from the camera to your family I will be able to capture those genuine interactions and emotions. 

Enjoy yourself. I find that portrait sessions can sometimes become stressful for parents, as they worry their children will become impatient or misbehave. Children are very connected to their parent’s emotional state and can sense their stress through tone of voice, manner, and body language. I’ve noticed that as soon as a child senses this stress, it can create a spike in their own stress level, and that usually expresses itself as misbehavior, impatience, or meltdowns. Obviously, this isn’t always the cause but it can influence this behavior or intensify it. If you can prepare yourself to relax and enjoy yourself during your day in the life session, your children will often naturally relax and enjoy it as well. Another reason to relax is that your children do not need to behave perfectly for a day in the life session. A child’s emotions naturally fluctuate throughout the day and I want to capture that variety and not just a fake smile for the camera.

If you would like a free consultation to explore the possibility of booking a Day in the Life session in 2022, please contact me at reed@rebeccareed.co or on instagram @rebeccareed.co