Nowadays, everyone’s a photographer. Whether on a cell phone or with a tiny digital, folks are snapping like crazy, getting instant gratification or launching their images into cyberspace.
But when you become a new parent, suddenly you want to call in the pros.
That’s where Carmelina Giordano comes in. Owner of Just Because Photography, she specializes in capturing kids for posterity.
Giordano, a 29-year-old Hoboken resident, doesn’t have a studio. She makes house calls.
“I try to make it as fun as possible,” she says. “Nobody wants to stand over their child and say ‘smile.’ That doesn’t work. Basically I play with them. I hang out with them for two hours and treat them as who they are.”
Giordano’s background prepared her for working with kids. “I have 20 cousins who lived around the block from me in Chatham where I grew up,” she says. “I’m no longer the baby of the family. I have little cousins, and I photographed them.”
She’s been holding a camera for as long as she can remember. “My first camera was a 110 from Burger King,” she says. “I used to shoot my dad working in the garden. I took pictures of flowers, and I was always photographing family members. My cousins and aunts lived down the street. I’d photograph us eating on the patio and I’d focus on their hands. I was always into that detail.”
Her business has grown over the past four years by word of mouth. “My cousins would tell their friends, and I would get referrals,” she says. “That’s how the business grew.”
Shooting kids isn’t easy, as most people know. Giordano is willing to share her tricks of the trade. “Always get down to their level,” she says. “To them you look like a giant, and I’m lucky because I’m short. They don’t look at me like an adult figure. I’m as natural as possible, peeking with them as if I were their brother or sister. I make funny faces, and go with whatever they do. If they’re crying, that’s how they are. I’ll speak in a quiet, softer voice if the child is crying, which calms the parents down”
Not surprisingly, it’s often parents who require the most reassurance. “Parents want it to be something it’s not,” says Giordano. “They want it to be like JCPenney, which I don’t do. When I come to their house it’s not what they expected. I will be as crazy as the kid lets me be and just have fun. I’m their play date. Occasionally I’ll ask the parent to leave the room.”
One of the best things about making house calls is the easy access to wardrobe changes. “We make dress changes all the time,” says Giordano. “If the child is wearing something that doesn’t work or if they spit up, we can change the kids’ clothes.”
Giordano says there’s no such thing as a disaster. “One child will be in my brain forever,” she recalls. “His mom warned me, but I played with him and his sisters, and I got the shot; I go back if they don’t like them.
“Moms get happy when they see images of their children,” she says. “The mom of the little girl on my business card said I couldn’t have captured her better. I know I can do it and make people happy. I love it.”—Kate Rounds
Info@justbecausephotography.com
(973) 978-8600