I was sitting at the computer trying to get an email out. My four year old is asking, “mom, mom, momma”. “What Lainey?” I need to check my calendar and start thinking of how many more minutes I have till I have to start the mad dash of feeding kids and getting everyone to the right field, at the right time for practice (because sometimes it’s the right field, wrong time, or right time, wrong field, and apparently I have to get those both right times 3 kids to call the night a success). “Mom, ma, mommy, mom.” “What, I’m listening Lainey?” Just a couple more clicks on the computer. “LOOK AT ME IN THE EYEBALLS, ” she said in a way that I knew she wanted to tell me something important to her. I was too busy with “stuff” I was missing my connections.

I love the quote by Catherine M. Wallace, “Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”

Just as we need to listen to our children, as photographers it’s so important to listen to our clients. Do we see them as just another person to make money from or are we “looking at them in the eyeballs”. Do we hear their story? Everyone who comes to us has special experiences and relationships, are we connecting with them in a way that they can see how much we care for them?

I recently had a mom open up about the lose of a child late in her pregnancy. It was heartbreaking and made me cry. But then I was able to create something beautiful for her. If I hadn’t know her story, the portraits would’ve been like all the others, except her story wasn’t like all the others. When you listen to the little things your client is telling you, they will share the big things and when you have that connection you can create portraits with more love and feeling that will mean more to the family.