My husband and I – both in our early 70’s – had been asked by my 93 year old mom to have professional pictures of ourselves taken. Clearly a request to be granted, but fraught with a lot of doubts about how we would show up in photos at this stage of our lives!
We researched several photographers and chose Denyce and Something Blue Photography from reviews. We went in for an initial conversation and thus began an incredibly fun, impressive, and thoroughly satisfying experience.
My husband had two B&W family photos from the 60’s that he treasured and asked Denyce about our creating something that mirrored them. We also wanted color photos for us and our family. Denyce – who very clearly has perfected her art to a high degree and has a trove of knowledge to draw from – was intrigued by the B&W project and was excited about doing it. For the color photos, she asked good questions about what we wanted to convey, where we would use them, and took the time to get to know us. My husband – who was less excited about this project – got completely engaged with it! We quickly decided that we wanted to work with Denyce.
The day of the photo session, she had a wonderful person – Korina – come in to do my makeup. I could have done it myself but preferred having someone do it right for the photos. We brought in many possible outfits that Denyce helped us choose from. We laughed a lot as Denyce used different backgrounds in the studio, had us sitting, standing, hugging and many other playful things that relaxed us and brought out our comfort with each other. For the B&W photos, the poses were more serious, and she adapted to lighting - all to mimic the old photos.
When we came in to review the photos, we were nervous. What if we didn’t like how we looked?? Well, no worry. She had made us look terrific!! She had a good process of helping us cull down all the options and we came down to 5. We ordered prints and she has a mobile app where we could share all 5 with friends and family (“look kids, we actually look pretty darn good!”)
Cost: Denyce had outlined this to us at the beginning. There is a sitting fee and then the total cost depends on what you order. With the sitting fee you get a credit towards your prints. It was an investment and we found it reasonable and well (!) worth it. We were thrilled.
We highly recommend Denyce and Something Blue Photography.