I've started steering clients away from my longest portrait option — 2.5 to 3 hours — because most people are more engaged and having more fun in the first thirty minutes than the last ninety. Erin's session proved the point. She wanted a new LinkedIn photo and a few portraits for herself, plus a couple of prints for her mom (which, for the record, is more than my own mother has gotten from me since 2007). We met at 6pm, wrapped before 7, and never wandered more than two blocks from my office. In that window we got LinkedIn options, a few fun shots, and one enthusiastic horn honk from a G train conductor who apparently liked what he saw.

 

Woman in red patterned dress with pendant necklace standing on urban train platform looking down.
Black and white photo of a woman in a dress leaning on a railing in an urban subway stairwell.
Woman in red dress standing on subway platform at golden hour with train in background.
Smiling blonde woman in patterned dress sitting against a brick wall in a sepia-toned portrait photo.
Young woman in red floral dress posing against a metal roller shutter door next to a yellow wall.
Woman in red dress standing barefoot against a metal shutter door on a city sidewalk.