Heirloom Portrait Education
Y’all! I am over the moon excited to start offering my very own courses for photographers who want to start offering heirloom portraits to their clients. When I began researching proper techniques, I found very little out there as far as online coursework. With my current business & family structure, a one-on-one training wasn't ideal. I needed to be able to learn a little bit here and there at my own pace, on my own terms. I couldn’t find any photographer that was offering this! So, I set out to teach myself. My style was already bright & white, minimalistic, so heirloom portraits just fit right in with my studio style. I used my daughter as my model, and bribed her with some candy, to figure out where to place my studio light. I have to say, my first attempts were not cute. There was a lot of shadows but also a lot of blown out highlights. When I went to edit, I tried to keep the softness of her skin, but not to the point where I lost detail. And the white background… woof. That was a tough one. How could I keep the background white without making her waaaay to bright?! When I switched to my black and white edit, I knew I wanted to have it match my normal black and white style which is clean & contrasty. The photo at the top of this page is what I ended up with of my daughter, my very first heirloom portrait. Once I found the type of paper that worked the best, I was hooked and absolutely in love with the outcome.
Amazing Transformations
No matter where you are on your photography journey, learning to elevate your portraits in the traditional heirloom style allows you to create images that will be treasured for generations to come.
All of this to say, it took some time to get it how I like it, and I’m still evolving. There isn't “one” way to do heirloom vignetted portraits. But, they all have a few things in common.
The elements that make it an “heirloom portrait” is this:
Most heirloom portraits feature a white, or light background. This varies from photographer to photographer.
The signature of an heirloom portrait is a white vignette around the subject.
Traditionally, children are wearing clothing featuring a collar, and it is usually light in color.
Finally, heirloom portraits are basically taken from the chest up.
Everything else is subjective and left to the creativity of the photographer. As a former high school science teacher of 16 years, I wanted to merge my love of education with my love of heirloom portraits. So, I created some coursework! It has filled all my buckets, and I hope that it helps photographers jump into this growing field without going through the growing pains that I did! You can see all of my course offerings on my For Photographers Page. This includes my all-inclusive BOOTCAMP that will take you from beginner to expert, and covers gear, lighting, posing, editing, marketing, AND MORE.
Please get in touch if you have any questions! Or follow me on social media: @heirloomportraitstudio!
-Amy
