I love a portrait session that captures a specific story. One of our family’s most special memories is the holiday cookie bake. We collect a stack of recipes (old favorites and new ones to try) and then get to baking! Last Christmas we crafted a series of then and now story portraits that showed that history of family tradition.
Then and Now Story Portraits
So what are Then and Now Story Portraits anyway? They’re just exactly what they sound like: portraits that are meticulously crafted to recreate a photo or series of photos from many years ago with the same people, similar outfits and the same locations. I’ve had a lot of fun with my senior clients recreating kindergarten graduation portraits during their senior years.
Recreating Christmas Memories
For last year’s Christmas cookie baking extravaganza, we thought it would be fun to try to recreate some of our favorite photos from cookie baking events in the past. And it really was! We dug through our old digital photo files to find some of our favorites, pulled out some cookie recipes we wanted to try, and got busy creating (and recreating).
We went back to the same kitchen where we’d baked before, and matched the girls’ outfits as closely as possible. (Yay for friends with amazing kitchens and inside info on where to purchase super-cool chef coats and hats). Then we loaded up all of our old photos into a slideshow that we could refer back to, and started matching up poses.
We kept cracking ourselves up laughing so hard at some of these expressions. What a fun memory we made!
This ended up being one of our most fun Christmas photo shoots ever! It’s inspired us to look through all of our family photos and think up other ways we could create Then and Now story portraits.
What are some of your family’s traditions, or favorite family photo themes? Drop a comment below and give me some great ideas!
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