Amy is tall (5′ 11″), has short blond hair and she’s a young professional. An invitation to a photo shoot was sent to her quite a few months ago. As she ‘confessed’, she’s been putting off a session with us. When I finally plugged a date into our shooting schedule, she just accepted the appointment without much of a reaction.
The day came. Jilly, the stylist, started ‘inspecting’ what the client had brought with her for the session. Lots of pearls. Didn’t make sense to Jilly. Amy’s style isn’t usually the girly pearly look. As Jilly was whispering that in my ear, I called out to Amy loudly, ‘Hey, what’s with all these pearls?’ She explained that they were from her mother who passed away quite a few years ago. Silence. We then went about incorporating the pearls in the shoot with a few modern twists.
The image above was a huge hit when I posted it in Facebook. Amy didn’t know that the pearls were going to be used this way. When the image was uploaded, she left comments with photos from her childhood taken at a portrait studio – probably with her parents watching her. Little Amy is wearing her mother’s pearl necklaces.
As a little girl, she is so small that the pearls came down to her knees. If Amy had brought those images along to the photo shoot, we could have easily simulated the looks and poses. Then again, it might not have worked out all that great. More than likely, I would have been a sobbing mess and would have made everyone else cry. Amy now has gorgeous photos of herself as a grown-up wearing her mother’s pearls. We love what we do. Could you tell? I’m teary already.
