Never Say “Cheese”
Almost all photographers will tell you to ‘Say cheese!’ during a photo shoot – but not Richard, who wants to frame a bit more of a genuine look, not an engineered smile – maybe even not a smile at all.
“You don’t have to smile in your pictures,” he says, sitting in a coffee shop across the street from his studio, Venture Studios in Caldwell, New Jersey, where he’s the manager and art director. “Some great pictures capture essence with natural looks, including our National Geography one.” He was referring to the captivating portrait of a girl hanging behind the front desk at his studio, the one I couldn’t help but stare at while I was there for the first time, letting the deep colors seep into my eyes and into my veins, heart and brain. It reminded me of an iconic National Geography cover from 1985 – the Afghan Girl – because of the similar effect on me, being mesmerized by its novelty although the Afghan girl cover turned out to be controversial because the girl on the cover felt tricked and exposed.
Venture Caldwell
Richard shoots family portraits. A family could be two people or more than eighteen. In his white-washed studio, there is space not only for a large family but also their pets, instruments… anything that will make them feel good about themselves. Richard makes sure you are comfortable, and you are you, while shooting in his colorful funny socks and playing the music of your preference in the background to create a comfortable setting.
“I could tell the relationship of a father and a son from a family portrait,” he says. He explained some of the techniques and tools he’s been using to surface real interactions during family portrait sessions. Mirroring is one – he runs, jumps and asks kids to do the same. His stuffed rabbit triggers the magic to make kids laugh. He asks them where its nose is; when they point, he sneezes, the kids laugh, and he shoots. “They always laugh,” he says. When the kids are relaxed and happy, so are the parents.
Richard makes a point to use props that are familiar and joyful. “That takes the pressure off,” he says. The pressure, he added, is to hide the negative features or aspects people think they have. Then Richard asked me, “Which one do you think is stronger: the willingness to show positive things or the wish to hide negative ones?”
While thinking about my answer, I realized one more time that being a photographer requires opening all senses to perceive, accept and connect with people. People are more open to connecting when highlighting something they love. But I thought perhaps the desire to hide our negative things, which may not be negative at all, is stronger than our desire to show things we feel good about. Our instinct to protect ourselves might be greater than our readiness to boast.
Each session at the studio actually starts with a phone call to learn more about the session-requesting clients and their expectations. That call is followed by a more detailed conversation over the phone with the specific photographer who will take their pictures. Clients talk to different people during the experience, but they don’t have to repeat themselves, as client notes are meticulously taken and shared with the team. When clients come to the studio, the photographer already knows a lot about them, so they don’t have to rely on first impressions, as it could be wrong.
Richard used the example of the study named ‘Decoy’, conducted by Cannon Australia, where six photographers received six different backstories before shooting the same person, who turned out to be none of the given identities but an actor. The pictures they took reflected the individual backstories they’d heard – and the person looked different in each one. Cannon released the video of the six backstories, the six different pictures, and the reactions of the six photographers when they learned the person who they were told about was an actor. The study was meant to show that a photograph is shaped more by the person behind the camera than by what’s in front of it.
Richard was born and grew up in South Africa. He lived in several countries before settling in the US. He was trained as a fine art painter and sculptor and started his photography career as a portrait photographer before opening Venture Caldwell Studio.
He said he thinks acquiring technical expertise is not enough to become a portrait photographer. Skills to communicate with people at different ages are crucial. As a photographer, you should provide the proper levels of details to clients based on their age. “Giving a complex direction to a toddler is pointless,” he says. Richard learned the importance of communication skills early on in his career, and having a brother 15 years younger also helped him develop these skills and accept that sometimes it is ok to be silly.
Richard said his personal experience keeps him doing what he is doing – providing a space for offering families to be themselves in their family portraits that will live beyond their age. Richard sees family portraits as pieces of art that are passed down from one generation to another. They are visual representations of our memories about our families, events, time and ourselves. Richard said he didn’t have many pictures from his childhood and didn’t want his two daughters to lack visualization as they grow up. He and his wife email their daughters’ pictures every day, along with notes, meant to be seen and read when their little ones are old enough to manage their own email accounts.
Have you had any family portraits taken? How was your experience during the photo shoot and afterward? Do you think it’s important to capture who we are in pictures? We take a lot of selfies these days, thanks to smartphones. Do we take them for ourselves or others? How does that change our pose?
