Photogra-momma :: Tamara Lackey!

I am so, so, so excited to introduce Tamara Lackey as today’s photogra-momma! Truly the queen of contemporary child photography (and a super-sweet gal to boost) I am honored and thrilled that she took the time to share with MWC. (During BUSY season, no less! I told ya she was super-sweet!) I love the honest and very authentic quality of her work . . . everything is beautiful and pure and real. I haven’t had the chance to meet her in person yet, but I hope to get to someday. Everything I’ve heard about her is that she is as beautiful and pure and real as her imagery. So, without further ado . . .

Welcome to Moms With Cameras, Tamara! We are so excited to have you chatting with us on the blog! Can you share a bit about your photographic career? Sure!   I’ve been working as a professional photographer for about eight years now. I initially started shooting portraits and moved into wedding photography when I got excited about the idea of shooting it in a similar free-form style. Along the way, I’ve photographed a great deal of commercial and editorial work.  Now I work mostly with “people” photography and really concentrate on showcasing truly authentic human interaction and expression.

You are so wonderful when working with children. How do you do it? What makes your time with them so magical? First of all, thank you.  Secondly, I believe that part of spending time with anyone in a way that feels magical has so much to do with tuning distractions and pretty much losing yourself in each other and the experience you’re having together.

I also spend time talking with mom or dad in advance of the shoot – or I take the time needed before the shoot even starts – so I can gather information that allows me to gauge how my interaction with the children will be most suited to their personality types.  Usually after the initial “warming-up” period, they’ll start to open up, and that’s when I can jump in and start to really engage them in a way that generally elicits a strong combination of expressions from my subject.

One thing I love about your work is you marry a modern style with technical excellence. I often see photogra-mommas who embrace a more photojournalistic style but never hammer out the technical skill. Can you talk a bit about the importance of mastering technique and how it has impacted your photography? I often say that the key to truly authentic and impactful photography is less about the technical and more about the technique.  But that doesn’t mean you drop technical considerations and just go for technique.  I believe it means you nail down your technicals, so that you can move beyond focusing on your settings and be able to concentrate on interacting and engaging your subject.  In my case, I checked out every single book the library had to offer on photography and then jumped on amazon to keep going – and I immersed myself with all that information until I felt like I had a comfortable understanding of the language and the technology I was about to use.  Then I started practicing.  From there, I was able to focus more on setting up and even styling my shots – eventually it became second nature for me, an inherent awareness of how to shoot an image technically well.

Speaking of technical skill, can you chat with us a bit about how you approach a session? How do you like to shoot? What are you looking for during a session? I prefer for most of my photographs to be visual markers of the conversations I’m having.  Whether those conversations are verbal or non-verbal doesn’t really factor in as much.

As I approach sessions with the intention of being able to remove a lot of the social and emotional barriers that usually exist between any two people who may be meeting for the first time, a great deal of my focus goes into opening the door that may be between us.  The rest is just taking pictures.

Who is your target client and how do you market to her? What little things do you do to set your business apart from the competition? My target client tends to be, first and foremost, individuals who genuinely appreciate great photography.  I want to be able to discuss the photographs I’ve taken with them at length – the variety of expressions captured, how relationships are showcased, and how this art will become part of their everyday life through keepsake albums, framed wall art, canvas pieces, etc.  I think what sets my business apart is that I care very much about who my clients are  – and who they are to each other.  And that’s reflected in much of the work we do together.  As to how I “find” my target client, nearly 90% of my clients come from word of mouth referrals, so finding new clients has as much to do with caring about current ones than any active effort to go out and seek new business.

I get questions all the time about sales and how to improve them. Can you share a bit about sales in your studio and what you have done to reach the level you are at? Do you have any best practices you can share? I believe that a sales session is really a consultative session.  We are sitting down to look through these wonderful photographs we took of their children and family ( I say “we” because I think it’s a shared process between the photographer and client), and we’re deciding what they love the most, how these images would look best together or as stand-alones, and we’re writing the entire experience down in a nice, clean invoice form.  There’s not a lot of science or magic to it – the emphasis is on the photographs, their experience of the shoot and how the expressiveness of their personalities and relationships will live on in their family over time.

I used to show a client every single thing I could do, every configuration of imagery, every size that could be printed and nearly every finish and framing option.  Basically, I used to completely overwhelm my client.  I don’t do this anymore, and it has helped quite a bit with improving the experience of a consultative session for everyone involved.

You are a generous and amazing photography educator! Will you please tell our photogra-mommas about how and where they can learn from you? Your questions are great because they are also beautiful compliments.  Thank you for that  You can check out my website, www.tamaralackeyblog.com, for upcoming workshops and seminars that I’m either hosting or speaking at throughout the year.  I just announced a 2-day workshop at our studio this March 23rd and 24th, and I will be offering two more later this year.  Of course there’s my DVD, Inside Contemporary Children’s Photography, which is very much focused on the art and business of children’s photography.  You can see a trailer and read reviews here: http://tinyurl.com/ydou5ck

Also  you can check out our new line of “edutainment” materials (DVD, book, or set including an on-the-go quick reference guide and iPhone app) on how to make the best of your photography in everyday situations  – less about professional professional and more about “every day documentation” – by visiting www.capturinglifebetter.com and clicking on the products section.

Tell us about your family! What do you all love to do together? How do you stay connected? What things do you do to restore balance when work begins to take over? I’m glad you referred to it as restoring balance – a much better way to praise it versus the oft-used “achieving balance”.  I think one of the first things most small business owners need to do is issue themselves a big ol’ break when it comes to trying to find a day-in & day-out level of balance between work, family, and life.  We can find more balance in our busy lives, but it’s downright unhealthy to expect to find it all at once, all the time.

I have come to find that balance, for me, means that I consistently work to narrow the gap between what my true priorities are and how I’m spending the bulk of my time.

My family is a tremendous priority to me.  One of the few things I know in this life is that I would be heartbroken to lose them.  I would hate to lose my business, too – the incredible sense of fulfillment and creative stimulation I achieve through visual expression – but my heart wouldn’t completely empty inside of me if I suddenly lost my business.  That can’t be said about my family.  Knowing that distinction to be true is what helps me to restore balance when work takes over.  I don’t want my children to remember me as mom-with-a-laptop-attached.  I want them to remember me looking at them clear-eyed, excited about who they are and expressing how much they give to me, each other, and this world.   And that’s often worth the effort of seeking out tactical ways to restore balance.

In fact, one of the best ways we stay connected is by completely disconnecting – leaving the phones and devices at home and going for family hikes, bike rides, dinner and a movie, and making an event out of scheduling activities.

This topic is a rich, multi-layered one, and one I like to cover in some detail.  Actually, you can watch a 45 minute discussion devoted to it on a recent episode of askdane.com: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7832772

To manage the burgeoning length of this response, however, I’d just say that I found a stronger balance between work and life when I started more actively separating them.  Instead of trying to work and engage and parent all at the same time, I structure my schedule so that I work when I’m at work, and I spend time with my family when I’m with them – AND I take time just for me, as well (the part that can often be left out for parents who work, too.)  That means, of course, that I give up some opportunities I would have taken otherwise, and I say no to requests that I might’ve just shrugged and just taken on before – before I decided that managing the stress and chaos of work, children, and home was worth the discomfort of saying no every once in a while.

Lastly, I give myself more of that break I referred to earlier.  I realize that there are some nights that I’m simply going to have to stay up late and work.  There are times I’ll take a client call when I’m with my kids.  And there are days I reschedule meetings because there’s an unexpected event at school.

None of these things mean I completely slid backwards and am terrible at managing the “all” of this, or that I am not giving enough to this or that or the next thing.
On the contrary, it means there are a lot of things in my life that matter a great deal to me.

They just happen to all matter to me at the same time.

Ok photogra-mommas, after you break out a tissue and dry your eyes, take a look at Tamara’s beautiful and soulful imagery. To view more of her work, visit her blogsite www.tamaralackeyblog.com. Thank you so, so much Tamara for sharing with us . . . especially at this time of year! I know I speak for all of us when I say thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom!