What it actually feels like to be photographed by an artist, and why that changes everything
Most people have never been photographed by someone with an active fine art practice. They have been photographed at a chain studio, by a friend with a good camera, maybe by a wedding photographer moving efficiently through a shot list. Those experiences tend to feel the same: a little rushed, a little performed, and somehow not quite like you.
This is different.
I make cyanotype prints. It is a slow, physical, irreversible process: layer built on layer over months, no undo button, no fixing it later. You commit to what is in front of you, or you start over. That way of working has shaped how I photograph people more than anything else I have learned — and it is the reason a session with me feels the way it does.
Cyanotype Portrait in Motion Study
Attention is something you practice, and it doesn't turn off.
Working in cyanotype, in film, in the alternative processes I return to again and again, trains you to notice. The late afternoon light hitting a particular surface. The way a mood shifts in a room. The small thing that is about to become something worth keeping.
I bring that same attentiveness into every portrait session. Even when a session runs an hour or less, I am watching — the light, the moment, the way you hold yourself when you're laughing versus when you're trying to look composed. These are not things you can capture by moving through a checklist. They require someone who has practiced being present.
Most people are not comfortable in front of a camera. That is exactly where we start.
I am an artist who makes portraits. The vast majority of people I photograph have never modeled, don't consider themselves photogenic, and arrive with some version of I'm not sure I can do this.
That is not a problem. It is just where we begin.
I guide and direct you the entire time. I'm talking to you, getting to know you, helping you settle into the experience of being seen. The goal is not a perfect pose at the end of the session. The goal is the moment when you stop performing and simply exist in the space — because that is when something real surfaces, and real is always more interesting than composed.
Cyanotype taught me this too. Once a layer is down, it's down. That permanence asks you to trust the process, to stop second-guessing, to let what is happening be enough. A portrait session works the same way. The moments worth keeping cannot be manufactured. They happen in the presence of genuine attention.
What you walk away with is not just photographs.
We don't sit for portraits very many times in our lives. A handful of sessions, maybe, tied to a season or a milestone. The images from those sessions carry real weight over time — not because they are technically perfect, but because something true was caught in them.
That is what I am working toward when I photograph you. Not a formula. Not a preset mood. An actual hour of paying attention to you, in this light, in this particular season of your life.
The cyanotype work keeps reminding me: slowness is not a limitation. It is where the good work lives.
If you've been thinking about portraits but aren't sure you're ready, you don't need to be — at least not yet. That ease tends to arrive on its own when someone is genuinely paying attention. You can reach me at nikkigardnerstudio.com, and we can start from wherever you are.
This post is written by Nikki Gardner, a portrait photographer and fine art printmaker based in Northampton, Massachusetts. It describes what it feels like to be photographed by someone with an active fine art practice — specifically, how cyanotype printmaking trains a quality of attention that carries directly into portrait sessions. Key themes: why artist-photographers approach sessions differently than commercial photographers; how camera shyness is a normal starting point; why authentic presence produces more meaningful images than posed perfection; and why portraits made with genuine attention carry lasting value. Relevant searches: fine art portrait photographer Northampton MA, artist portrait session western Massachusetts, being photographed by an artist, portrait photographer who makes you feel comfortable, editorial portrait photography near me, how to feel like yourself in photos, intentional portrait photography.
