What's a 'faceless photo', you ask? It's exactly what it says: a photo without a face in it. It could be a photo of people walking away, of someone's hands holding something, of baby feet, a small detail like a little girl's braid, just hands being held, the shadow of someone and just their legs. As long as the subject's face isn't being shown, that's a faceless photo, and they can be incredibly beautiful. Plus, they tend to be a little offbeat and unexpected, and I LOVE it when photos are a little bit different. So here are 3 reasons that I will likely include them in every gallery I deliver and some examples of what I mean.
I am a lifestyle photographer. This means that I focus on connections, emotions and details to tell the story of your family. You'd be shocked at how well a faceless photo can convey connection and emotion. Yes, I do take photos where everyone is looking at me and smiling, but those kinds of photos get boring after a while, not to mention an entire gallery of everyone looking at the camera with the same expressions would be SUPER boring and wouldn't show your family's personality at all. Faceless photos are part of how I deliver variety in a gallery and show your family in a different kind of way. Like this photo: to keep the kids from getting bored during a portion of the session, I had them collect leaves to make a bouquet. To tell that story, I took a photo of the completed bouquet. The little girl's green dress was the perfect backdrop to complement those beautiful fall colors!
2. Detail shots, especially for newborns and young children help to tell the story of how small they are, so that you can look back and remember, "Oh, you really did fit in the palm of my hand." Just a shot of big brother's fingers holding his new sister's pinkie finger show how tiny she is, and in a beautiful and creative way that he was curious about her. A shot like this shows that story as art, rather than a quick snap of the whole scene, in which you wouldn't really even be able to see their fingers like this at all. The same goes for how baby's head fits in Dad's hands so easily, and how perfect those tiny toes are. Black and white makes them classic and forces you to focus on the details rather than the colors you see.
3. Not all clients want to share their children's or their faces on social media. It's not uncommon to have a client request that I do not share their images on Instagram or Facebook, as they want to keep their lives or their children private. If I ask about faceless photos, more often than not they're totally ok with that, so I can still share a bit from their session (without giving specific details), and then they have some options should they also want to share images. Win-win.
What do you think of a faceless photo? Let me know!!