Open House for the Child Development Labs at UVa

This weekend was the first Child Development Labs Open House, so I was there giving out free on-the-spot portraits for kids who signed up to participate in research. The labs are especially in need of families with newborns, as our researchers look at infants as young as 4 months of age. As technology changes and more people use cell phones, it has been increasingly hard to find families to participate in studies using traditional methods, such as looking through the Daily Progress birth announcements and using the phone book. However, on Saturday, 45 brand new families signed up to participate in studies and over 80 people came to get their free snapshot! Thanks to everyone for stopping by and making the event such a success.

If you had to leave before picking up your snapshot, email me at cat@catthrasher.com with your snail-mail address and I will mail it to you!

As I have stated previously, I am a also a researcher with CDL, studying the development of attention and the psychophysiology emotion in young infants. Other projects I am working on include an art-science collaboration with a post-doc from the labs, Vanessa LoBue, who is now at New York University. We are still in need of 4-to-6 year old participants for a stimulus set we are creating of children making emotional facial expressions. Let me know if you would like to participate!

Kegan at 9 days

Lovely baby Indira

This is favorite shot from a recent shoot with a 5 month old in Charlottesville!

What is a family documentary?

With much excitement, I have added a “family documentary” package to my list of photographic services, because families do not exist in a studio! Families exist in a house, in a park, playing in the street, and sitting at a dinner table. The purpose of a family documentary is to literally document how your family exists, together – because that is the greatest advangate that photography allows us: the ability to document how life actually is.

The conventional definition of “documentary photography” comes with the stipulation that the photographer does not interact with the scene, but instead lets events unfold before them. Such an approach allows the photographer to capture exactly what is happening, in the raw, without posing their subjects or their scene. This method is challenging, but often yields photographs with incredibly genuine displays of humanity.

The family documentary it is one part documentary and one part family. It is both an unpredictable stream of events and a series of well-planned moments. For the family documentary package, I follow your family around for up to 6 hours, documenting your day. It could be a family event, such as the first day of your baby’s life, your 3-year-old’s birthday party, or a family reunion.

In the end, you get a 40 page coffeetable book full of photos from the day of photos, with the option of upgrading to a leather-bound keepsake version. I’ve just gotten a sample book made of my own family’s Christmas events, and it’s amazing:

So check out the package details and let me know if you’re interested!