These kids are so fun! They love adventure. They love to be silly. They live life without reservation. Their home allows them to live fully, and inspires me to bring that energy into my life. These kids are not self-conscious. They live big and true. They love to hate each other, and because they do that so well together, they love each other. Their life is colorful and adventurous, caring, in touch with nature, appreciative, and exciting. They experience a full range of emotions and experiences. They have compassion for animals, eagerness for excitement, and a taste for adventure. They just want to enjoy themselves – it’s as simple as that.

These kids represent freedom! They have room to run – both in their physical life and in their spirits. They don’t feel self-conscious because it doesn’t even cross their minds to think of it. They are living perfectly, in their inherent perfection. They serve as a wonderful example for all of us by saying or doing whatever moves them. And no matter what, it’s always just right.

The day we shot our photos it was wet and rainy. They didn’t care. Nothing can stop them from living out their true identities because they are so deeply in touch with themselves. They don’t need labels or expectations. They just are who they are. And it’s beautiful.

They are fun and happy kids, and their mom allows them to express themselves fully. She truly appreciates the qualities that make them so perfect. With such an understanding for who these children are, she feels the need to express their perfection – to amplify it and project it back to herself and to the world. These free spirits are an inspiration to all of us. When I look at these pictures, I literally feel their energy. It’s amazing that we can bring photos of little people around with us and find enlightenment and happiness in their images. It’s the miracle of life.

Embracing nature as it is expressed is an ideal to strive for. But it isn’t the only way to work. There are often situations where the aim is to capture great portraits, but nature’s “poses” are not providing the best expression, energy, and composition for the photographic medium. In this case, a photographer might use what she knows to create a realistic scene that conveys a particular feeling that a person embodies. For example, after spending some time with the two sisters below, I found that they were energetic, happy, and fiercely competitive!  Nature showed me this; I didn’t make it up. I used this knowledge to create a scene that conveyed this aspect of the relationship to the viewer. While this race didn’t occur without direction, it resonated with the girls and led to a fun, vivacious, and authentic portrait.

From Wallace Stevens’ poem entitled Add This to Rhetoric:

“It is posed and it is posed.
But in nature it merely grows.
Stones pose in the falling night;
And beggars dropping to sleep,
They pose themselves and their rags.
Shucks . . . lavender moonlight falls.
The buildings pose in the sky
And, as you paint, the clouds,
Grisaille, impearled, profound,
Pftt . . . In the way you speak
You arrange, the thing is posed,
What in nature merely grows.”

The world we live in cannot truly be portrayed through art. People are who they are, things exist as nature created them. Our portrayals are merely interpretations of reality as we see it. But portrait artists are assigned the task of creating pieces that evoke a recognition and a memory of the gift that nature gave the world, so that you may cherish it forever. Photography is special because it is created by the very light that shines on nature’s gifts. That piece is true to reality and does not need interpretation.

How does a photographer strike a balance between capturing nature as it occurs and controlling the outcome in order to ensure beautiful images? This is a skill that separates the good from the great.