Portrait studio · Hudson, NY · One sitting a day. Booking about four weeks out.
Nine in ten people tell us they hate photographs of themselves.
- I photograph badly
- I hate my smile
- Can you do something about my nose
- I never know what to do with my hands
- I look angry when I am not
- Just make me look normal
- My good side is the left one
- I have not had a photo taken since school
- Everyone else is photogenic
- I always blink
- Do not make me smile
- Can you make me look thinner
Every one of those was said to us in the studio, most of them more than once. Almost nobody arrives comfortable. That is the normal condition of being photographed, not a problem with your face.
Why that happens
You have been looking at the wrong version of your face your whole life.
The mirror is reversed and you are used to it
Every mirror you have ever used shows you a flipped face. Faces are not symmetrical, so the flipped one is genuinely a different arrangement — and it is the one you know. A photograph shows the version everyone else has always seen, and it looks subtly wrong to you and completely normal to them.
Familiarity is doing the liking, not beauty
People reliably prefer the version of a face they have seen most often. Your friends prefer your photographs. You prefer your mirror. Neither of you is wrong, and only one of you is looking at something other people can see.
A face at rest is not a face being unfriendly
A relaxed face has a downturned mouth and heavy lids, and reads as displeased in a still frame in a way it never does in motion. Most people who say they look angry in photographs are looking at their own face at rest for the first time.
Lenses change the geometry, and close ones are unkind
A phone camera held at arm’s length enlarges whatever is nearest it, which is your nose. Stepping back and using a longer lens flattens that out. Most self-perception about noses is a lens problem, and it is ours to solve, not yours.
None of this is reassurance. It is the reason a sitting takes an hour instead of ten minutes: we are waiting for the point where you stop watching yourself.
Six sittings
What they said, and what we did about it.
“I never know what to do with my hands.” Dariusz, 34 · portfolio, for an agency
So we gave the rest of him something harder to think about. Standing on a chair that is not quite standing takes enough concentration that there is none left over for the hands, and they sorted themselves out inside a minute.
“I hate my smile.” Mei-Lin, 31 · thirtieth-birthday sitting
She spent the first twenty minutes hiding behind things, so we let her. The daisy is hers; she picked it up off the table. The frame is about the eye she did not cover.
“Just make me look normal.” Rowan, 44 · booked by a friend as a gift
We tried normal for half an hour and it was flat. Then we asked what they actually wanted to do, and this happened in about four frames. It is the only picture from that day anybody has printed.
“Photograph me working, not posing.” Priya, 38 · painter, for a gallery listing
The best portrait of someone who makes things is usually of them making the thing. We turned the lights off, kept the one over the easel, and stayed out of the way for forty minutes.
“Neither of us is photogenic.” Adaeze & Kwame, 29 and 33 · anniversary
Both of them were fine the moment they stopped looking at the camera. We asked them to talk to each other and ignore us, and then waited. This is frame sixty-one.
“I want to look like someone else.” Beatrix, 22 · portfolio sitting
We said no to that, and yes to a different light. Nothing here is retouched beyond dust and one stray hair — the change is where the lamp is, not what was done afterwards.
Retouching
We remove what is temporary. We keep what is you.
This is a line, not a slider, and it is the same line for everybody. If you want it moved we will move it and say so on the invoice, but we will tell you first what it costs the picture.
What comes out
- A spot that will be gone in a fortnight
- A stray hair across the face
- Dust, sensor marks, a shine from the lamp
- A bra strap, a label, a crooked collar
- Something distracting in the background
What stays
- Lines, and where they came from
- Scars, birthmarks, freckles, moles
- The shape of your nose and jaw
- Your teeth, as they are
- Your body, at the size it is
The reason is practical rather than moral. A retouched face stops looking like the person, and the people who love you notice immediately even when they cannot say what changed.
The hour
Nothing usable happens in the first twenty minutes.
One sitting a day, because the last twenty minutes are the ones worth having.
| When | What | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 0–10 min | Tea, and no camera in the room | Nothing is being photographed. This is not a warm-up exercise, it is genuinely just talking. |
| 10–25 min | The camera comes out, on a tripod | On a tripod so there is a face behind it rather than a lens. Most of these frames are of someone being photographed. |
| 25–40 min | You see the back of the camera | Always. Seeing three good frames early is the single fastest way to stop bracing. |
| 40–60 min | The part we are here for | Somewhere in here you forget. Every frame we have ever delivered comes from this stretch. |
About thirty finished frames within ten days, and a call to go through them if you want one. You choose; we do not pick for you.
One rate
An hour is $420.
One rate. A headshot and a birthday sitting take the same hour and the same care.
- One hour, one person or one couple
- About 30 finished frames, full resolution, no watermark
- A gallery you can download from for five years
- Personal-use licence, perpetual
| Additions | Cost |
|---|---|
| A second person in the same hour | $90 |
| On location within Columbia County | $140 |
| Commercial licence, per image | From $200 |
| Print, 8×10, hand-finished | $65 |
Common questions
Before you book.
What if I freeze up?
You will, for about the first half hour. Everyone does and the hour is built around it. The first frames are of someone being photographed; the ones we deliver come from after you stop noticing.
Can you make me look thinner?
No, and it is the one request we always decline. It never looks like the person afterwards, and the people who love you spot it instantly even when they cannot name what changed. We can light you well, which is a real answer to the same question.
Do I need professional hair and make-up?
No. Some people like it and it photographs fine, but a sitting where you do not recognise yourself in the mirror before we start is a harder sitting, not an easier one.
What should I wear?
Something you have worn before and were comfortable in. New clothes photograph as new clothes. Avoid a print so loud it becomes the subject, and bring a second option in case the first fights the light.
Do you use flash?
Almost never. The studio faces north and the window is the light. It means we shoot in daylight hours and it means the pictures look like the room you were actually sitting in.
Can I see everything you shot?
You can see the whole take if you ask, and about one person a year does. Mostly it is two hundred frames of you blinking, and looking at them makes people feel worse rather than better.
Book an hour
Tell us what you are worried about.
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