Custom Portraiture is a treasure and an investment! The gift of portraits is not only for you, but for the generations that follow. We treasure the early photographs of our parents and grandparents as heirloom keepsakes. Our goal is to create these keepsakes for your grandchildren and theirs.
How is the custom portrait experience different from what you might expect at a typical studio? What is a photo session like with His & Hers?
We want to help you preserve your family memories for generations to come. We take this charge very seriously, and believe it’s a genuine privilege to be part of capturing those you love. With three boys of our own, we know how quickly gummy baby smiles become wiggly kid teeth become adolescent braces become grown up smiles. We want you to take as much pride in what you hang on your walls as we do.
Newborns
Oh, those first days. You are so, so tired but so happy for this new little person who seems to have belonged to you forever. Those tiny nails on itty bitty toes. Dreamy sleep smiles. Milk bellies. Yawns and stretches as adorable as only a newborn can. We spend 3-4 hours with your baby with only cozy soft fabrics, gentle posing, and natural light. Darcy specializes in photographing babies under 10 days old. The baby room in our studio was built with these portraits in mind. Choosing the right photographer for this moment is so important because these photographs cannot be retaken. You have only this tiny window of days to capture baby’s first tender moments. We feel incredibly lucky to be part of your baby’s first days.
Darcy uses soft natural fabrics and handspun yarns in gorgeous neutrals and pale pastels to add texture and softness to our newborn photos. We avoid “props” in favor of timeless, raw, natural or organic materials and accessories to add variety and texture to baby’s portraits.
Because of the great deal of time invested in newborn portraiture, we accept only two commissions per week. Please book after your 1st trimester to help ensure we can get you on the calendar around your due date. Because of early arrivals or babies who arrive past their due date, we can sometimes get last-minute babies in; we accept only 2 due dates per week.
Children
Sweet bare feet. Tiny baby teeth. Shy smiles. Sweet and simple dresses. Chubby fingers. Juice bellies. How soon that becomes long, elegant piano fingers. Long eyelashes. T-ball and ballet and first day of school. I want to capture every age and stage of these babies who are no longer babies! We use Iowa’s changing seasons and natural settings as a background for your portraits. We shoot in beautiful parks and trails, or in our metro’s alleys and urbanscapes on all but the most bitter weather days. We love natural light and we begin sessions about 2-3 hours before sunset. We spend about 1 – 1.5 hours playing, following, singing, or asking 100 questions while we capture natural, serious, and playful expressions.
Darcy is not a smile-at-the-camera while wearing your Sunday best kind of artist. Please look over her artwork to familiarize yourself with her style. Bare feet, belly laughs, contemplative wonder; our goal isn’t to capture your child’s faux-cheese smile, but to capture your child being a child. Darcy loves capturing your child at play and believe the truest moments come from these natural expressions of curiosity, seriousness, wonder and delight.
We accept a limited number of children’s portrait commissions and we shoot all children 2+ outdoors. On cloudy days, we may move up your session time so we have ideal natural light. We shoot outdoors year round, except for our tiniest clients. We will reschedule for rain, but not for wind or clouds. Some of our favorite sessions have been right after a rain storm, in the snow, or the light of an approaching storm.
Seniors
As women, we generally are given two moments to be the shining star of our images: the day of our senior portraits, and our wedding day. Senior portrait sessions are a ton of fun. We know you don’t want your senior portraits shot in front of the same door at the same place in the East Village as your classmates. We scout locations, and Randy chooses unique locations week-by-week based on Iowa’s changing natural landscapes. Senior portraits are shot outdoors, in various metro locations, typically in the 2 hours before sunset on the day of your session. Because of the limited number of senior portrait sessions we can accept each year, we specialize in and only book senior girls.
To help you feel confident, beautiful, and look amazing we have connections with our area’s most amazing makeup artists. We can’t emphasize how remarkable the difference their work makes in your portraits! Not only do they cover any teenage skin issues, or glossy shininess, they enhance your features with photo-ready emphasis of your eyes and beautiful contouring and highlighting. This recipe of warm light, beautiful portrait makeup, attention to styling and wardrobe, and Randy’s shooting style creates portraits that will be unique to you, timeless keepsakes, and make beautiful senior albums that our senior girls love!
Families
We love to capture small, intimate family moments. We photograph babies, children and their families. The way he looks at her as she nurtures the little one as only a mommy can. The proud way the young man stands just like Dad. Tiny hands in big strong ones. Laps filled with little bodies. Little arms that cannot reach all the way around Dad’s strong hug. Kisses for Mom, the smile just before the eye roll from a reluctant preteen trying to be stoic. All of those relationships that grow and change as quickly as your family does.
Family portraits are only scheduled outdoors. This limits the number of family portrait commissions we can accept, but we love the way those natural setting portraits feel and look on your walls and ours. We will shoot bundled, cozy families in the Winter and Spring, but Summer and Fall portraits book several months in advance for the coveted evening sessions. We offer our makeup artist for our families as well, and encourage Mom to consider it. We know that if Mom doesn’t love the photograph, it will never make the wall. (Read above for makeup for our seniors, Mom, and let us know if you have questions! We’d be happy to book you a MUA.)
For all our sessions
We take enormous pride in the portraits we create for your family. We’re so grateful for each of our clients! In 2012, we filled our available portrait sessions the last week in July / first week in August for the whole year. We know your family is balancing work, school, responsibilities and extracurriculars and portraits require a lot of planning and forethought. Our calendar fills fast, and our clients have been incredibly patient and flexible to get one of the available sessions. We recommend that you book well in advance for very specific dates. We keep sessions limited to allow many hours for shooting, editing, viewing, ordering, packaging and delivering every family’s portraits as we’d like our own handled. We have a courtesy $400 minimum portrait investment for all our sessions.
We tentatively schedule all family, seniors and big kids in the 2 hours before sunset. Please know that if it’s cloudy or overcast we may need to move up your session 30 – 60 minutes. If it’s clear, we may push back your session 30 minutes. We know how much time it takes to prepare, so we check weather apps and forecasts religiously. We also know the formula for getting the best light for your photos, and as natural light photographers – we are dependent on the elements. Thank you for being flexible with us as we gage the best light for your session!
About 3 weeks after your session we’ll invite you to the studio for an evening to view and order your images. We provide drinks and snacks, and show you your gallery images and talk about sizing and crop factor. We will show you all the products – prints, albums, canvases, frames and products we have available. We love the products and vendors we’ve discovered and cannot wait to show you all the beautiful products! We encourage you to measure mantels, niches, or any wall spaces you’d like to fill, as well as make a list of the sizes and loved ones you’d like to order gift prints for. Near the conclusion of your viewing session we’ll be placing your order. You can anticipate prints to be back within 2-3 weeks, and your canvases, albums, and frames to arrive in 3-8 weeks depending on the product. We’ll let you know what to expect!
When to Book
Newborns: around 12 weeks into your pregnancy. Books 6-7 months in advance in peak times, 6-8 weeks in advance the remainder of the year.
Children: 3-6 months in advance for warm outdoor seasons. 4-6 weeks in advance for Winter.
Seniors: book in early Spring of your Junior year for Summer Portrait Sessions, and in the late Spring for Fall Portrait Sessions. We shoot senior portraits year round but the summer and fall sunset sessions often book 6 months in advance!
Families: only outdoors! 3-6 months in advance for warm weather. 6 months in advance for Fall. 4-6 weeks for Winter.
Because of last minute unexpected rescheduling, we can sometimes get in a last-minute session. We keep a wait list for these will-call sessions!
Artwork in the Digital Age
Getting beautiful images of your loved ones on the wall is something that is important in our own home, and we know it’s important to our clients, as well. We have scoured available vendors and discovered products that we’re proud to show in our studio, home, and we believe you’ll love as well!
In a digital age of sharing online, the beautiful canvas on your mantle, the heirloom coffee table album, and the framed photograph on the wall will always, always trump the jpg on your hard drive. We know sharing is important to you, which is why we offer courtesy web-sharing files of the photographs you purchase as gifts or wall portraits. To maintain the consistency of artwork that you see in our portfolios, we manage all the printing of your portraits. Copyrights of our artwork will always remain with the artist. Our artwork may not be printed, scanned, edited, cropped, altered, sold, or used without our written permission. This is our livelihood. Copyright violations will be prosecuted with infringement fines starting at $50,000. We appreciate your integrity!
