Pro Photographer’s Holiday Rant: Print More than Cards!

This Professional Photographer is making an impassioned Holiday Shoot Plea: Print more than just your Christmas cards people!

I have been photographing families for over 20 years & I love what I do; keep in mind, what I do is capture precious moments, which, when printed, are priceless heirlooms & treasures. 

holiday, hammonton nj

Holiday Shoot Design Set-up Craziness!

Every year I along with so many other professional photographers design an epic set-up for Holiday Photography & make everything original & way over the top – trust me, the effort is absolute insanity. And this process is usually started in like JUNE! Ask any pro tog out there! We design, we spend money, & we tirelessly revise until everything is perfect & astounding & projects a special atmosphere. Each year, I make myself crazy to develop new ways to wow the client & make sure your limited time in front of my lens produces miraculousness beyond comprehension.

Holiday Photography scheduling is not easy on clients either:  you have families to wrangle, sports & appointments to re-arrange, outfits to pick, hair to fix. This is a crazy time of year for clients along with us photographers.  Trust me, I know why everyone arrives to my studio breathless, & I appreciate the effort it takes to be here, getting these photos taken.  

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Print More than Cards!  

So then why does everyone only want cards? Cards. CARDS!

5×7’s (sometimes smaller) that will ultimately be thrown in the trash.

So many conversations or emails this year started with “I just want one image for my card.”

wait. what?

Listen, professional photographers are spending countless hours over the years wracking their brains to create that new epic original set up. More glitz, more glam, more lights, more color, more trees, more trucks, generators, more more more- for your holiday session & this is sometimes of our favorite work from the year! It is so frustrating that these photos, which are only being printed onto cards, are not being preserved properly, & in most cases, let’s face it. get. thrown. in. the. trash! REAL TALK: How many professional images do you have of your family taken every year; if the answer is only around the holidays, please re-think what you are investing in preserving. The images from this season are some of the most fun, festive, heart warming images of the year! PUT THEM ON YOUR WALLS!

Sure, some save cards & bring them out, but they aren’t going to be passed down to your children; they are cards, they are not art.

Yes I even have all the cards over the years that I have designed of my daughter and string them up around the house.

But professional portraiture should be over the holiday mantle & is too good to be trashed. Create artwork of your family with images from your professional session & print on canvas or have a piece beautifully framed: make the most of the memory & the photography

Our Home will be More Festive

Where do you spend most of your time? No, not the soccer field or the dance studio…YOUR HOME! Decorate your home & make it even more festive by printing & displaying all your years of holiday photos. Switch your wall art SEASONALLY with your family portraits & I GUARANTEE that it will be everyone’s favorite talking point during any holiday event and friends & family will wonder why they aren’t doing the same! You can thank me later for being a trend setter 🙂 Think about it, we all have favorite holiday decor that holds a special meaning, but family portraits are always going to elicit the most wonderful memories and the most warm and fuzzies. Not just for you, but your kids too! What is more valued than passed memories with family. Maybe family that isn’t even here anymore. How many of us laugh at the photos of Santa with our siblings from our childhood: the best right!? By only printing cards that could all be tossed away, you are missing out on the opportunity to create a new tradition. When you bring out the artwork from passed holidays reliving those memories with your children or siblings year after year, giggling with each other as you reminisce, I mean, that is one of the reasons we listen to Christmas music in October isn’t it? Because how it makes us FEEEEEEEEEEEEL !


Back to that Busy Schedule

Ok so how many of you are thinking to yourself “I have zero time for this especially this time of year!”, well, if all this sounds super overwhelming and you wouldn’t know where to start but reeeeeeeeaally like this whole idea than talk to us! We are the professionals! We would HAPPILY help you design a wall or help decide on canvas vs framing vs metal etc. This is what we do for a living! Allow the experts to do the work for you. In fact, in my studio, I offer to come to the house to hang the artwork as one of my services. I can help design a collage from images through the years or how to display one large piece to ‘WOW’ the space!

Think about it, how many people this year will pay someone to wrap their gifts all nice and fancy for under the tree. Then only to be torn apart in minutes.

These are our memories people! If you want to get artwork up on your walls and don’t know where to start come to us! Any time of the year! 

Pro Photographer’s Holiday Shoot Plea: Print More than Cards!

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Holiday Family Portraits:  The Gift that keeps on Giving & I think Clark would agree 🙂

The perfect family present is everyone spending time together during the holiday season.  As everyone gets older & new traditions get started, it is your family portraits that remind you of all the wonder of the holiday season.  

The photo session we share creates images that are just too special to be shoved in a box unprotected or tossed away unremembered.  Print your art, hang it up, & I promise you, every time you walk by it you will get goosebumps as you relive the magic of that moment.  That moment in time that you can only return to in those images ON YOUR WALLS!

This is my 2020 setup:  it’s beautiful & I can’t wait to share it with my clients and decorate their walls! Thank you for listening to this photographer’s rant and all you professional photographers out there can we get a very loud collective “AMEN”

Oh, and Merry Christmas <3

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  • WendyLove this idea! I love to break out all my holiday stuff, and now I really, really want a Christmas session!!!! ReplyCancel

  • Corinna D RaznikovYour work is amazing. Keep going!ReplyCancel

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