Liking your clients?

[Tom Edgerton]

Marta, thanks so much for the compliment! We may be opening up a separate thread here, but here goes.

I phrased that post partly that way to spark discussion. I really don't apologize for liking my clients--it's healthy. Maybe I'm just wistful for the really quiet, evocative introspection I see in other's portraits and would like to explore more of it in mine. One of my favorite child portraits ever is a wonderful, quiet, head-and-shoulders that Dawn Whitelaw placed in the PSOA finals year before last. I wonder if I could bring a little more "discerning watchfulness" to my sessions and get this, but I'm pretty outgoing and I know it influences what I get back. And if I think TOO much while shooting my reference, I get in my own way and miss everything. It's a Zen thing.

Also, too, I do often give my clients a choice between an outward and an introspective image, and often press for the latter, but I'm enough of a businessperson not to get in a huff if they don't choose what I want them to. And, I do a good bit of posthumous work, and the available reference in these instances is usually a smiling file photograph. So some of it is out of my control. Cynthia's point about having what you WANT to paint in your portfolio is well taken also--people will pick what you show 'em.

I'm going to bow out of this thread now and see where it goes. Maybe check back in later.

Love to everyone.