We miss photographing faces

We have the great honour of photographing people as part of our job.

We’re still doing passport photos, and did some weddings during 2020, and a couple of family groups, but we’ve done much less of our favourite thing, doing photos of people, taking photos that show faces at their best, hopefully capturing something of a woman or man’s character and personality – and being a good representation of them.

In normal times we’d be photographing people in Watford, in our Abbots Langley photo studio, at their workplace or homes in Watford, St Albans and Hemel Hempstead, and at events, weddings and parties too – but not many during 2020!

Only seeing half a face

If we go to local shop, supermarkets or other essential shops we see each other’s hair, eyes, brows – but we don’t see whole faces. Masks cover cheekbones, noses, chins and mouths – so we’re missing out on seeing whole faces. Although we can get some idea of expressions from eyes, we’re missing out on so much by only seeing half a face.

profile photos, John, Abbots Langley
profile photos, John, Abbots Langley

Hoping to photograph faces very soon

Me and Edna have photographed lots of different faces, and really enjoy every person and face we photograph. Even if we’re not photographing faces, we still love to see them. Like everyone else, we never expected that we’d be restricted to only seeing half a face – we’re very much looking forward to seeing whole faces.

…along with seeing faces, we’re looking forward to photographing some of them too.

Sometimes the photo we’ll soon be taking will be passports, visas or ID photos – although we’ve been done quite a few of them during the pandemic – actually more than any other year. Sometimes it will be photos of brides, bridegrooms, best mens, bridesmaids and wedding families and guests.

We’re also looking forward to doing dating profile photos and photos for businesses – websites, staff member boards, Linkedin profiles and social media profiles.

Thankful for seeing whole faces

Quite a few of us see faces in video calls, which is some compensation for missing seeing them in the flesh, although it’s not the same as seeing people in the person. I expect that we’ll all spend the rest of our lives being very thankful that we can see whole faces – in person, and not half covered by masks, or on a video call.