I made this image last night thinking it would be part of my Finding Nemo bath series that I have been doing for almost five years now with Liam.
Interestingly, what turned out, was anything but a cute bath picture with two adorable kids in the frame. Instead, I unexpectedly got an anti-portrait.
It's a real moment showing real children and how they interact. I've always felt portraits were sort of fantasy freeze frames and not truly representative of an individual's personality. Liam, who is being pounded on with a toy by Sophie, was fine after the bashing. I wasn't expecting Sophie to hit her brother and wasn't at all prepared to interevene at the decisive moment. However, you can bet Sophie didn't get to stay in the tub much longer after that one.
This leads me to reflect on the tradition of giving pictures as gifts to family and friends. I don't think I would frame this image for grandma, but I don't think you'd find me rushing off to Sears to have a formal portrait made either.
Ron Leiber, a staff writer for the Wall St. Journal, went in search of a place to have pictures made of his children and found a story at the same time. Leiber visited three chain portrait studios and two commercial photographers. This is a fascinating tale of America's addiction to possessing the perfect likeness of our loved ones, especially our children. We want to remember our kids as angels and not the little devils they can sometimes be. What this story brings up for me is how much money Americans pay for portraits each year.
A recent analysis from the Corel Corporation indicates a continued trend in do-it-yourself digital photography. By 2007, the report states, over 80 percent of home image takers will have more than 5,000 photos and video images stored on PCs." By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Americans, some 80 percent, will have knowledge of how "to manipulate and improve photos or video images," the report notes.
With the costs associated with portrait studios increasing, it makes sense that people will become less dependent on commercial photographers to record life events. At the same time, professional photographers provide a level of quality that would be hard to match for the average consumer.