092: Marcie Reif – Top Tips For Photographing Families & The Benefits Of Being A Yes Person

March 20, 2023

“People are going to remember how you make them feel.”

MARCIE REIF

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Marcie Reif!

Marcie Reif is an in-demand kids, family, commercial photographer, and photography educator in the Atlanta, GA area. Marcie is a Tamron Pro Ambassador and travels around the country each year speaking at conferences and leading other photographers. Marcie is also founder of The Roadtrippers Retreat, an educational experience for female photographers, and the author of the best selling instructional resource Bringing Home the Story of the Beach. Marcie Reif Photography has been featured on highly popular online communities such as Click It Up a Notch, Manfrotto School of Excellence, Tamron blog, and the Click Magazine blog. Her work has been featured and shared countless times by industry-leading companies and has appeared in print in the highly acclaimed Click Magazine, Tamron Magazine, and Digital Imaging Reporter.

Check out some of the biggest points from Marcie’s interview below:

  • Marcie’s journey in the Photography Industry
  • How her background has influenced her business

  • Top Tips for photographing families

  • How to ensure you get all the shots you need
  • How you can stay motivated

  • Pro’s and Con’s of being a YES person

  • The Roadtrippers Retreat
  • The importance of making your clients feel good

  • What a huge impact staying calm can have

  • The one thing that made a difference to Marcie’s business!

What are your top tips for photographing families?

My first tip would be reading the kids’ personalities right out of the gate. If you’ve never met the family before, soon as they’re getting out of the car, as soon as you’re saying hello to them, you’re automatically going to see the really outgoing kid or the really shy kid. And most families are going to have a little bit of both. So I always talk to the really outgoing one first as long, especially because they’re usually the loudest. They’re trying to show me something, tell me something. So I’ll usually talk to them first and kind of let the shy one watch me and just kind of see, “Oh, she’s a friendly person.” I’ll talk to their mom and dad and make sure everybody’s kind of on the same page that, “Okay, she seems really nice. I think I can trust her.”

Then once that child has had a chance to talk to me, then I go over and talk to them, and I talk to them much more quietly, maybe kind of squat down so I’m looking right at them. I start to give them some compliments, but very quiet so it’s just between me and them. It helps build trust with the child, but also the parents, they can automatically see that you can read their kids. They don’t need to tell you everything about them or how they’re going to behave. Sometimes parents want to dump all that on you right away. Like, “Good luck with this one. This one never smiles for me.”

Yes. So I feel like as long as I can gain that control and that trust right away, that’s my first best tip.

The second thing is just to stay really, really calm. As calm as you can. And to talk as quietly as you can. You obviously want them to hear you, but just keeping things calm. And also, I try to spend a lot of time with the kids, even if we’re moving from one spot to the next. I’ll hold their hand if they’re open to that. I’ll walk just with them, I’ll talk with them about anything, and then complimenting everybody the whole time. Just telling everybody what a great job they’re doing. Finding anything positive I can. I remember that as a teacher, you have a whole classroom of kids. You have got a couple kids who are not doing the right thing, but if you majorly highlight what you want to happen with some other kids, they will usually rise to that and want to do that. And so I try to do that so that they’re kind of waiting for my compliment, and that they’re kind of straightening up a little bit. Other than that, if things are still not going well, sometimes I’ll ask the parents to step aside, and just let me have some time with them. Or if it’s not weird, we can turn a little corner and get somewhere where no one’s watching them. Sometimes the kids who are really hard, it’s not really anything about them, it’s more about they don’t want all that attention on them. Everybody is looking at them. Everybody’s telling them to smile. Everybody’s trying to get something out of them. Some kids cannot handle that, and then they’ll act out because they don’t know what else to do. So if we can get some less eyes and some less parent expectations off of them, then that’s kind of my last go.

How do you ensure you have all the shots you need before the end of a session?

So, I keep a shot list in my head. I keep a flow in my head that I do with every single family. And so I kind of know when we check that box in my head. And if we are not checking that box in that one location, I just move us, because sometimes moving just helps the family. And so I don’t really let the parents know that I’m not getting it. I’ll just say, “Okay, I think we’re good here, let’s move over by this tree,” or wherever we’re at, and it just kind of gives everybody a chance to reset. Also, another tip is that you move as quickly as you can, because kids are going to give you 20 minutes, and that’s about it. And I know that full sessions, we want to give people an hour, but 40 minutes max is all these kids are going to give you. And so if you have to take breaks and stuff, it’s great to have that extra time, but if you set your own expectations that you’ve got 20, 30, maybe 40 minutes, that you got to move quickly. And so if you’ve got that shot, you have got to stop. Even though it might be the most cutest thing unfolding in front of you and you want to keep going, you’ve got to stop. Because you have no idea when that child is going to be done.

And if they’ve had enough, and they truly have had enough, there’s not a whole lot you can do about that. So that’s just fair to them, and also to their parents too. Because if you are trying to push their child to do something that they’re not going to be able to do, it’s not a good experience for everybody and it’s stressful. So you got to move quickly.

And when I’ve got everything in my head, I always say, “Okay, I think we’ve got everything out of the way.” Hopefully that’s within 20-30 minutes. And I’ll say, “Os there any last wishes?” Especially if their kids are still doing fine, I’ll say, “Would you guys rather have some family, some individuals of your kids? Sibling shots?” I make sure I get a picture of mom and dad too. And then sometimes they’re done and they’re like, “Okay, I think if you’re good, I’m good. Let’s get out of here. They’ve had enough.” And if they have some last wishes, then we just keep going until we have to stop. And that’s kind of how I manage that.

How can our listeners stay motivated?

Oh yes, I know. And some people do feel like that. And if that’s how you truly feel and it just doesn’t work, try something different. Walk away from it. I think when we all start out, we all try everything, and we just think that everything can fall under this umbrella of a family photographer or whatever. Weddings even. There are things out there that aren’t going to work for everybody’s personality. So if you really feel like it’s burning you out and it’s just not for you, try something different.

The way that I feel like I stay motivated is, first of all, I love it, thankfully. But that doesn’t mean there’s not certain times a year where it’s really hard and taxing and wears me down, and takes up a lot of my time. So you got to get through those times of the year. The seasons, there are busy seasons, there’s slow seasons, and that’s pretty consistent. Even the busier I’ve gotten over the years. January, always going to be a slow month. February kind of picks up a little bit, but January for sure. But the months leading up to it are crazy. So plan for that.

But also, shoot things that you love to shoot. So I love to shoot, take pictures of my kids still, even though it’s not the easiest thing in the world, but it really does make me happy. So still plan those things out. I love to take pictures of my son playing baseball. It really, really makes me happy. So I make sure that I bring my camera to baseball. Don’t always get it out the whole time, but I get so excited over that. And then my daughter, I love to do more styled shoots with her. She’s really fun, she’s good at it. She’s a great little model. We can have some friction there about … She likes to definitely have some control, which has also served me well with working with other strong-willed kids. She usually has to have some say in the outfit or whatever, and we can sometimes disagree on that. But once we get there, I really, really have fun with that too.

So taking my camera on vacations with us. Just doing the things. That’s why I started doing it, and it’s still one of my favorite things to do. And I know a lot of people say taking pictures of their kids is really hard, and it is. And if it doesn’t work for you too, great. Hire somebody else. Just make sure that it gets done. But I would say that’s one of the things that I think still excites me the most. Obviously I do not get paid for that, so that is just something that I do just for fun.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Marcie for joining us on the show!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally

About Marcie Reif

Marcie Reif is an in-demand kids, family, commercial photographer, and photography educator in the Atlanta, GA area. Marcie is a Tamron Pro Ambassador and travels around the country each year speaking at conferences and leading other photographers. Marcie is also founder of The Roadtrippers Retreat, an educational experience for female photographers, and the author of the best selling instructional resource Bringing Home the Story of the Beach.