Posts tagged generations

Together, Not Together

If there’s only one thing I can gift my kids, for them to pass down to future generations, it is this.

Time is precious, we’re all changing so quickly. The opportunity to mark this time is now.

My sister and her family were in the country for the first time in a year and a half. I had been aching to have this. Getting everyone in the studio simultaneously would have been a challenge. Instead, I booked everyone in slots over the course of two days. Each unit was able to select their favorite version of themselves, and then I combined them into one piece.

This also gave me the ability to create subset groupings, to gift for Chanukkah. (Not so much a surprise…)

I’m feeling how critical family is. This moment won’t live on, but this piece of artwork for my home will.

PersonalRachel LinkwaldOctober 26, 2023family, family photography, family photo, atlanta family photographer, studio photography, studio, home studio, atlanta studio photography, generational art, generationsComment

My Mother

My Mother

She asks me to take her portrait.

I ask if she loves it.

She says, “It’s not for me, it’s for you.”

I pretend I didn’t really hear it. Because I can’t really hear it.

Rubbing my back as I fall asleep in my childhood bedroom

Walls covered in the mural she commissioned that would spark stories

She listens. The greatest gift she gave me was that she made space for listening.

She was safe, and she taught me to listen to my own.

But I can’t hear her today.

The Moment is Now

Dana reached out looking for a last minute photographer, wanting to capture the moment with her family before her mother was scheduled to begin Chemotherapy that week.

My stomach lurched. Both my mother and mother in law are, thanks to G-d, cancer survivors.

Dana’s mother is battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer. But she wanted to keep it quiet during the session, because her brother still didn’t know about it. He has Fragile X, and she wanted him to enjoy the session.

I wondered if I would. I wondered if I would keep it together.

It was an expectedly emotional process. Both the session and when we viewed the images and came up with a plan for them. I am so grateful to begin the process of creating an album for her, one that she will be able to pass down to her daughters.

I wish Dana and her family a lifetime of health and joy.

Update:

Featured on Redfin!

Redfin LOVES PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY WALLS!!

I received an email from Redfin, the Real Estate search engine, that said, “We are excited to let you know that Shayna Image has been chosen to be featured in Redfin's next blog article, "How to Curate a Photo Gallery Wall in Your Home”". We've selected notable experts in the field to provide homeowners with some creative ways to curate a beautiful photo gallery in their homes.”

Scroll through to read my tips, and also to get some great advice from fantastic print photographers across the USA:

CHECK OUT THE ARTICLE HERE

The Bat Mitzvah Girl, Then & Now

MAZAL TOV to the Wenger family, on Gila’s Bat Mitzvah!! Everyone was so excited to celebrate her, even if the plans had to be carefully rethought. I’ve had the opportunity to capture this family through the years, and seeing Gila evolve into such a poised young woman was stunning. Leading up to the event, we strategized the best methods to memorialize the occasion with family as lasting art in the safest way possible.

Click each image to enlarge.

Each of the girls radiate. Strong individuality, but all emanate kindness.

The Wengers were able to celebrate, albeit in a non-traditional way, with those they love most.

From the beginning, they knew they what they wanted for their home. We planned out the galleries that they will enjoy daily and for a lifetime to come.

The girls in the hallway (image unedited for mockup)

The images to the side are for individual bedrooms.

They wanted images from our previous sessions in 2012 and 2017 to be incorporated. I can’t stress enough, as a photographer, the importance in investing in backup data systems and being organized about it. I was able to pull up the original images from both years, and spruce up both so that their gallery would look more cohesive.

In my own home, I have a gallery with prints from multiple years, and I confess I often spend time reveling in the growth of my own littles. I’m thrilled that the Wengers will be able to admire the story of their family in their living room.

May they have many more celebrations to come!!

Update 1/12/2021!

We were pushed off a couple of weeks due to HSL, but were thrilled to complete the installation today!!

ClientsRachel LinkwaldNovember 27, 2020bat mitzvah, simcha, simcha portraits, portraiture, portraits, family, family photography, generations, generational art, sistersComment

Happy Firsts!

“No pressure, but do you guys think we can finish the remodel on this studio in time for this sweet baby’s first birthday session?”

The construction team put the pedal to the metal, and we pulled it off in time for two firsts:

My first session in the new studio!
Solomon’s first birthday!

It felt like a true celebration of firsts when this amazing baby beamed his mega-watt smile at me. I was floored. “THIS is the kid I get in the studio today?? Can I be this lucky??” I told him he needed to save the grins for the session, nervous he’d wear himself out— it never happened. The smiles persisted: his, and so, of course, mine. He was a rockstar and an angel.

Speaking of new things worth celebrating, this family just moved into a new home! And this art will get to decorate the new walls! We’ve selected a 20x30 canvas to adorn their staircase.

Screen+Shot+2020-09-03+at+1.30.34+PM.jpg

But what’s probably most incredible about this story isn’t what’s new: it’s what’s old. When his mom reached out to me, she told me about the sentimental and expansive family galleries that bedecked their old home. Pictures of her brother and grandfather as babies that she wished to mirror (and we literally got three of the exact same poses!), and lots of images they had brought over from the “old country” that they had restored. This is EXACTLY why I do what I do!! The cheap print labs aren’t archival, and thus the art can’t be passed down. But I create heirloom pieces. So not only will baby Solomon join the family wall amongst generations of pictures, but he, too, can be passed down with them for generations to come.

Screen Shot 2020-09-08 at 10.10.46 AM.png

**Update!

We had designed his piece for their old home, but when they unexpectedly moved sooner than expected, we delayed installation until they were settled. What’s great about the size they selected, is that it looks perfect in the new stairway, too!