School portraits are a passion project for me.
I am here to rid the world of boring school portraits. Have you ever met a 4 year old with no personality? For that matter, an 8 or 12 year old? So why would you settle for stilted, soulless school portraits of your students?
At the core of Portraits by Lisa is a mission: to help people feel seen. I truly believe that every person needs, in their souls, to feel loved. Photos are tangible evidence of love. Hanging a portrait not only reminds you of those you love, but also reflects your love back onto the people in the photos. It's not just anyone who you'd put on the walls of your home!
When I was little, my parents bought the school photos every year. They added it to a modest pile of photos of me that they had from that year and put them away in a book or album--occasionally a great one would make it to a wall. We didn't have so many pictures, and as a result, they were more precious.
Nowadays, a regular Thursday afternoon picnic in the park can result in iPhone images enough to fill a roll of film. My niece, for example, has probably been the subject of 2,694 photos in her first year of life (I'm guessing more than all my decades combined), but very few are nearly as precious as the few photos I have of my first year--photos that live in an album and on some walls.
That's where modern school portraits are so valuable, even in the digital era, but they have to be AWESOME! They are now standing in for all the pictures that will never be printed--sometimes they're a single image to remember an entire year of indescribable cute, of awesome growth, of unnoticed changes, of long eyelashes and perfectly freckled cheeks--of looking JUST LIKE dad when he was four. I don't take the challenge lightly. And you'll see the difference.
To be honest, I never thought too much about school portraits until I was asked to do some. When I went to the school, I shot them in a way that mimicked a private shoot and the feedback was tremendous--the portraits were beautiful, the experience was non-stressful for the kids and the staff, the parents were delighted. I realized right away that this style, intuitive for me, was NOT the norm, and that the results had exceeded expectations. The other thing I noticed was--it was SO MUCH FUN!
I started growing the number of schools that I worked with, and now I am growing it some more. And I am passionate about providing the very best school photos in Boston.
My own school portraits hung in my grandparents homes. We did not live close to either set of grandparents for most of my life, so I know that they anxiously anticipated the receipt of their grandchildren's school portraits--even though they were head and shoulders only with ugly backdrops and sometimes forced smiles. It makes my heart sing to imagine you framing or sending beautiful, modern school portraits by Lisa (me!) to your loved ones.