Lexi Shapiro has set up a parabolic umbrella and a softbox to light the set at her North Point Breeze photography studio. She has meticulously cataloged outfits, researched snacks and constructed props.
And that’s not all.
“I’ve got Boogie Wipes,” she volunteers when 3-year-old Claire Ciencin’s nose starts to run. “I was a Girl Scout. Always prepared.”
About a year ago, Ms. Shapiro decided to open a photography studio just for children, renting studio space in what was once a mining equipment factory. But Ms. Shapiro’s photos — and increasingly those of other Pittsburgh photographers specializing in children — are a far cry from the Olan Mills and J.C. Penney prints of the past.
The popularity of “fine-art” portrait photography has arisen in reaction to the accessibility of digital cameras, both smartphones and digital single-lens reflex cameras, as well as photo sharing and editing apps such as Instagram, said Traeton Garl, a photography professor at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.
“Anyone can take a phone and follow their kid around and get a lucky shot,” he said. “How does someone go into that market and make a living? They’re going to have to bring something to the table that the consumer cannot do themselves. It’s their creativity, their concept, their direction.”
Weeks before the photo shoot, Ms. Shapiro visited the Ciencins’ home in Hopewell to meet Claire and her 10-year-old sister, Sydney, raid their closets for comfortable photogenic outfits and interview them to come up with a theme for the shoot. Ms. Shapiro, who studied photography in college and worked in commercial and editorial photography, describes her work as couture, drawing inspiration from fashion magazine spreads. Previous shoots have included whimsical props like paper airplanes and balloon animals.
Searching for a theme that would encapsulate both Claire and Sydney, Ms. Shapiro settled on cats, because the two like to play kitty cat games on the floor together. “I want to celebrate what makes kids unique and special,” she said.
And so, for two hours the girls posed to thumping music from Meghan Trainor and the Hamilton soundtrack (their choices), sometimes with kitty ears or a giant ball of yarn-like rope that Ms. Shapiro had constructed for the occasion.
While Sydney’s only challenge was to stop dancing long enough to stay still for the pictures, Claire at times needed some coaxing (provided in part through a spread of potato chips and Swedish Fish, some of her favorite snacks) for her star turn in front of the camera.
Shyness is an occupational hazard in photographing young children. Ms. Shapiro credits the home visit, as well as the music, snacks and relaxed atmosphere, for the fact that a child has never had a total meltdown in her studio. “I put so much legwork into the advance prep that the kids don’t feel uncomfortable,” she said.
McKenna Grace Harris, of Okemos, Mich., in a finished image from a fairy photo shoot from photographer Nikkala Anne Shumaker at her farm in Kittanning. Ms. Shumaker specializes in children and family photography and aims for a "magical" look to her photos.(Nikkala Anne Photography)
A few miles up Penn Avenue and a few blocks removed, Nikkala Anne Shumaker was measuring a doorway for renovations inside her studio space in Lawrenceville, using a dollar bill because she’d forgotten a tape measure.
Ms. Shumaker, who has five children ages 4 through 13, started learning more about photography more than a decade ago. “I just wanted to be able to take better pictures of my kids,” she said.
The pictures were good enough that friends started asking her to take pictures of their children too, and in 2007 she started taking on paying clients. She worked out of her Kittanning farm and surrounding land, creating mystical backdrops of mermaids, fairies and unicorns for the photos.
To respond to demand from prospective clients reluctant to travel to Kittanning, she opened the Lawrenceville studio in a former toy store on Hatfield Street last year, and she and her husband are renovating a barn on their Kittanning property to use as a studio there.
Ms. Shumaker’s business, Nikkala Anne Photography, has built a dedicated following. She’s had families fly from Arizona and Indiana for pictures in some of the scenes that she’s created using props such as a rowboat, an umbrella made of leaves and a sleigh on hockey flooring and fake snow.
On Valentine’s Day, she brought a cast-iron tub to the Lawrenceville studio and filled it with 75 pounds of Valentine candy hearts for kids to “swim” in.
“I don’t want to be like everybody else,” she said. “I want this to be fun for clients and for me.”
There are 10,306 portrait photography studios nationwide, according to 2014 data from the U.S. Census bureau, down from 14,833 in 2008, when smartphones were just hitting the market.
Part of the business today is driven by social media, which gives parents an outlet to share photos that previously may have only been seen on a mantel or inside an album.
Some parents pay birth photographers, or use professional photographers for a “Fresh 48” shoot while their babies are still in the hospital. Others use photographers for a “smash cake” session for the baby’s first birthday or for outdoor seasonal photos. And while photographers such as Ms. Shapiro and Ms. Shumaker are highly choreographed and stylized, others use a documentary style with no posing at all.
Professional photo sessions “that have become pretty large production shoots, like doing a commercial fashion shoot” are also becoming more common among high school seniors,” said Mr. Garl.
And while families can buy pictures through a high-volume vendor at the mall for less than $20, fine-art portrait photography doesn’t come cheap. Depending on the photographer and the complexity of the photo shoot, the cost can run from a couple hundred dollars into the thousands.
At Pose PGH, Ms. Shapiro charges $250 for a one-hour session and $400 for a two-hour “conceptual session,” with prints and/or high-quality digital images costing extra. Ms. Shumaker charges a $200 styling fee with an additional $600 minimum print order. Her clients typically spend between $1,500 and $3,000.
The photographers stress that their clients aren’t buying just images but art for their home. As part of the planning, both ask ahead of time about decor in the rooms where the photos might be hung and preferred colors to use in the shoot.
“I believe that this is art, and it should be on your walls,” said Ms. Shumaker, who advises clients to print large statement pieces for best viewing. “You see a whole family in an 8 by 10 and you barely see their eyes.”
For Sydney and Claire’s mother, Symone Ciencin, the session at Pose PGH was about the experience as much as the photographs.
“They had the best time — the fact that [Ms. Shapiro] goes into the detail of what foods do they like, what music — that makes it on their level and not just, ‘Mom wants to take their picture.’ It’s a good memory.”
And while a session like this isn’t what she would have envisioned 10 years ago, she appreciates that it’s now a possibility.
“When Sydney was little, we had a little of the social media, a little of being able to take pictures but it wasn’t as pervasive, and I don’t have as much of her life documented,” she said. “With this becoming more normal, we do want to have pictures to share. We don’t have any close family nearby and having the pictures to send to grandparents and share on social media, we can give that part of our life that they’re not part of.”
Anya Sostek: asostek@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1308.
First Published: March 5, 2017, 5:00 a.m.