Obituary Portraits

I'm sure a lot of wedding photographers go through this. It's just that they don't like to talk about it. After all, us wedding photographers photograph happy occassions, not sad ones.

Years after the wedding, the couple would contact me. Some as long as over twenty years ago. I'm excited to hear from them after so many years. Expecting them to say they want to hire me to photograph their children's weddings, it turns out that they had a death in the family, usually a parent of the bride or groom, asking to look for an old negative to use as an obituary photo. I would go down to the garage and pull out their negatives and bring it to my old lab to get a print. I have done this many times.

Recently a client of over twenty years ago called me to do exactly that. After searching, I remembered that I have given the negatives to them a few years ago and now they couldn't find it. Panicking...they supplied me with a proof print which the person was only a small part of the 5x5 proof. I use textured paper too so it was impossible to get a good scan. I asked them for their wedding album to see if I can work off that. But they eventually found the enevelope of negatives in the file cabinet in the garage. Now I have to get the portrait to them in three days. It looks like we'll get the portrait to them in time.

What really gets me is why do people not get their portrait done by a professional photographer every so often? I can do a nice portrait for $350 and I will bring the set up to their houses too. How should I market myself for this? "Be ready for your funeral...Get your portrait done today!"