Your opinion on family portraits?

Lollipop95

What is all of your opinions on getting professional family portraits? (One with parents and their kids) personally I think it's really cute and sentimental

Pics or GTFO

robman60

I'm not quite sure why, but I always feel there's a "look how idyllic our family is, aren't you jealous?" air to family portraits.

wazky

I prefer family landscapes, better view altogether.

shane9689

if its a staged family photo, no thank you...if its a natural, "oh everyones around at the christmas dinner table, in for a photo" job, then its ok

hfallada

I find the American Christmas card ones to be so funny. The whole awkward looking into the camera with everyone including the dog.

ElleEm

I actually think they are lovely. I am one of six kids, and there are probably less than five pictures of all the kids and my parents together. Even in the photos we do have, some of us are blinking or looking the other way- it would have been nice to have decent family shots taken. It has become more popular over the past few years though. If we had a family portrait on our wall in the late 80's/ 90's, people would have said we had notions!

WesternZulu

ElleEm wrote: »

If we had a family portrait on our wall in the late 80's/ 90's, people would have said we had notions!

And they'd be right :pac:

Spring Onion

shane9689 wrote: »

if its a staged family photo, no thank you...if its a natural, "oh everyones around at the christmas dinner table, in for a photo" job, then its ok

Yeah would generally agree with this.
The worst form of hell is being asked to look through somebody's wedding album. Full of staged photos that are really cheesey and sometimes just weird.

mad muffin

robman60 wrote: »

I'm not quite sure why, but I always feel there's a "look how idyllic our family is, aren't you jealous?" air to family portraits.

*Johnny, show me on this dole where he touched you?*

FunLover18

We have a few around the house but they're for us. We don't force visitors to look at them and we certainly don't have albums.

We have enough sense and taste not to do the Christmas Card thing. Obnoxious crap, has anyone received a family portrait christmas card and thought "Oh how nice, just what we needed for our mantlepiece, a picture of somebody else's family"

creolebelle

I love them. Makes me look forward to getting married and having kids

Czarcasm

Lollipop95 wrote: »

What is all of your opinions on getting professional family portraits? (One with parents and their kids) personally I think it's really cute and sentimental

The two very reasons I can't stand them tbh. My wife has practically a library of photo albums, and then gigabytes of family photos on an external hard drive. The last time we had a 'professional' family portrait session, I'd have done better myself with a Polaroid camera! We looked like the lobster family! :pac:

My brother is worse, family photos EVERYWHERE! You enter the house and *BOOM, BOOM, BOOM*, the walls in the halls, the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen, even in the frickin' bathrooms!

My other brother got sick of him clogging up his newsfeed on Facebook with family photos and unfriended him. My brother didn't take it very well :pac:

bumper234

Great song

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hSjIz8oQuko

deseil

Not into the professional ones at all.
A friend of mines house is like a shrine to her and her kids there's at least 20 portraits in her small hall and another 20 in the sitting room and 4 digital frames on her fireplace. Freaks me out

Pinch Flat

deseil wrote: »

Not into the professional ones at all.
A friend of mines house is like a shrine to her and her kids there's at least 20 portraits in her small hall and another 20 in the sitting room and 4 digital frames on her fireplace. Freaks me out

We know someone like that - even one in the crapper. Puts me right off when I'm pushing one out.

ryan101

robman60 wrote: »

I'm not quite sure why, but I always feel there's a "look how idyllic our family is, aren't you jealous?" air to family portraits.

That's sounds more like begruding people a family photo.

Those family pics come into their own not now, but 30,40, 100 years down the road, after people are dead and gone.

JumpShivers

I don't like professional family photos. There's nothing special about them.

A random photo taken at Christmas or a birthday is much more personal.

Insect Overlord

Needs to be done tastefully with oils on canvas. Naturally.

As a professional photographer, I feel that the government should make it mandatory that everyone should have to get 2 family portrait sessions done per 12 month period.

Failure to do so would result, of course, in having to pay the Portrait Tax.

orangesoda

they remind me of Ian Beale in eastenders

Kathnora

Whatever about family portraits I think it's good to get the children photographed at different stages. It amazes me how people go around snapping everything in sight with their camera phones but yet can't produce a decent portrait photo when its needed. Sadly, when someone dies this can ring true.

131spanner

I have a lot more value on every day photos. They're more personal, showing how people really were day to day, not polished up

In 50 years I'd much rather see a picture of myself and the auld lad tipping around on the farm in shítty jeans and wellies than posing in our Sunday best

ryan101

131spanner wrote: »

I have a lot more value on every day photos. They're more personal, showing how people really were day to day, not polished up in nice Sunday gear

yeah but we've all got hundreds of them

131spanner

ryan101 wrote: »

yeah but we've all got hundreds of them

Professional portraits are grand if they're your thing, whatever floats your boat like, I'm not saying they're not

I just think photos that bring back memories of people or places in a time gone by are a lot nicer. You'd be surprised of how much you'd forget when you look at a photo

FunLover18

JumpShivers wrote: »

I don't like professional family photos. There's nothing special about them.

A random photo taken at Christmas or a birthday is much more personal.

Depends. For our parents 25 anniversary my siblings and I got them a voucher for a photo session. They insisted we come along and get a full family one so that was kind of special for them.

I do agree that one taken at home can be just as nice and can be more personal. But again I would say that we (as I'd imagine most families do) put up the photos for ourselves not for visitors and there are more for photos taken by mother on the walls than there are professional.

Kathnora

Professional photos are sharp and are done properly...they don't have "red eye", blurred images, people looking away from the camera etc. If you look back at the black and white professional portraits of the late 19th century/ early 20th century when it was the done thing to get your photo taken especially if you were intending to emigrate they are of excellent quality and have withstood the test of time....we can't say the same about the family snapshots we take ourselves, can we?