Background & Set up:
A few years ago I started hearing about a really cool service where a professional photographer would meet you on your vacation and take photos of you. Lots of my colleagues shared their beautiful family photos in cities such as Dublin, Paris, and Lisbon, etc., and they spoke about how much their clients enjoy doing it as well. Before my trip to Europe this year I finally got some scheduled for myself to try it out! I used to service called Flytographer which has lots of different options for packages across the world (with a larger concentration in Europe & the US it seems). There are other companies also doing this now, but Flytographer seems to be the premier option so far. I scheduled one shot shoot for myself in Madrid and then one shot for my family in Munich. The process was incredibly easy – a coordinator at Flytographer headquarters that helps organize everything between you and the photographer you select, and then they make sure that you are very well prepared before you start. They send you detailed meeting instructions, tips on what to wear, and other FAQ’s well in advance of your shoot. There are lots of different packages available – you can choose what area of the city you want to shoot in or you can leave it up to the photographer; you can choose how long you want your shoot to last; and, of course, you let them know what kinds of photos you’re interested in having. This is of course very popular for proposal shots, but I was just looking for some nice professional photos of myself doing what I love (traveling of course!) plus I wanted some great professionally done family photos.
The Experience
For my solo Madrid shoot I of course selected a photographer named Julia. There were several photographers available on my date, and you can browse through the photos in their portfolio to choose the one who you like the best… But let’s be honest – I probably chose her cause we have the same name! Because it was a solo shoot and I was just trying out the service for the first time, I chose to do only a 30 minute shoot. Those 30 minutes went super fast and would probably not be enough time for any more than one person, fyi. When we met up Julia & I did a quick review of what I was looking for, and then we were off! Even if the 30 minutes was a little rushed, she gave me lots of different backdrops for my different photos. She did a great job making me comfortable with the – let’s face it – somewhat awkward fact that I was having a photo shoot of myself. After a few minutes I was turning into a little supermodel -strutting towards the camera, fake laughing, and tossing my hair around like a pro. At several points the fake laughter turned real, of course, which resulted in some of the best photos! The only disappointment of the quick shoot was that the historic & picturesque old wine bar that she wanted to shoot me at was closed. 🙁 Instead we popped into the rather nondescript café next-door so I could at least have some photos of me drinking wine (since that is one of my favorite things!). In the end I got way more photos than I expected and they are really fantastic! Since photos say more than 1000 words ever could here are my favorites:
The photo shoot in Munich was a different story. First of all it was an hour long (since there were to be so many of us), and secondly of all it involved my entire family. Now, you should know that while we enjoy having family photos as much anyone, we are not the type that makes a point of doing it everywhere we go, much less the type to hire professional photographers to do them. Both myself and my brother-in-law are decent photographers so usually we rely on us or self timers to get a shot of most or all of us for a memory of that trip. Needless to say they were skeptical. “Do we have to all dress the same?!?!” “What on earth it going to be like? Is the photographer just going to follow us around?!?” “I don’t wanna walk around with some person taking pictures of us!” “An hour!?!” You get the idea. I’m very happy to say that I proved them completely wrong! We had such a good time with our photographer in Munich! Gloria was extremely charming and bubbly and set us all at ease pretty much from the start. She learned our names & family relationships right off the bat and got us started at the beautiful Fernstelle in Munich. While it’s still a bit awkward standing around in a public place getting your photo taken, at least when you have your family (or friends) around you, you have people to to lean on and interact with. In the very first setting Gloria had us link arms, look at each other, and walk to the camera together. This immediately got us laughing because it seemed so ridiculous! We ended up doing the “slow walking pose” in just about every setting and they are my favorites from the shoot, no question. During the shoot she walked us around to several different settings in old town Munich, many of which I would never have seen without her local knowledge. She even gave us a few local stories about some of the places we saw (enough that several in my family wished she was our tour guide for the entire week!). Since this was a multi-generational family shot she did really good at shooting different groups of the seven of us at different times and in different settings. Again- the results speak for themselves:
I know that’s a lot of photos of my family – but we got almost 40 photos and they’re all pretty wonderful, right?!?!? I mean, the one of my Mom & nephew (who especially hates having his photo taken) is pretty priceless. When I say we “got” – I mean that within a week of the shoot we had a zip-file with the original, high quality, professional photo files. So you pay for not only the time with the photographer but a certain number of digital photos to keep for yourself. (In both cases I think they gave us some extras too!) Needless to say, Nana already has three large prints framed in her house. And I just have to decide which ones I’m printing for myself! Have I convinced you!?!? It’s well worth your time – I promise!
**NOTE: Full disclosure – I do get a little $$ back (and so do you) if you use the link above, but this is NOT a sponsored post. I paid for both of my sessions just like anyone, so if it was not a good experience I wouldn’t have written this. You can expect to see me happily credit both Julia and Gloria from Flytographer any time I use these photos! 🙂