Lindsay May, the head photographer at the Upper East Side location of Classic Kids Photography, is what you could call a “big picture” thinker when it comes to her greatest passion: Capturing memorable moments on film. “It’s not just about the photo, it’s about the experience and about the fine art at the end of it,” she explains. This guiding principal—that great images come from genuinely great moments—is part and parcel of the Classic Kids business, a consortium of photography studios (with two locations in NYC, as well as in Greenwich, CT; Chicago, Santa Monica, and more) founded over 20 years ago by photographer Julie Floyd. “She basically founded a photography company based on the principal that kids have to be themselves in order for their photos to be amazing,” says Lindsay, who started with Classic Kids in 2007.
For Lindsay, her fellow photographer Darya Golubina, and two assistants at the UES studio—who also do on-location photo shoots, in locales like the Hamptons—the secret to getting kids (and tweens, and teens, and whole families, for that matter) to be themselves in front of the camera is trust. “Kids won’t be cute and amazing and quirky and themselves unless they trust you,” she says. To learn more about the extra-special CK way of snapping the sweetest family images, we spoke with Lindsay about her passion for family photography and what’s new this season at Classic Kids!
Editor’s Note: To get a taste of Lindsay’s work, check out the slideshow below at the end of this article!
Tell us about the Classic Kids philosophy and what makes the business special.
Instead of sitting in one place, saying “Cheese,” and smiling, we want kids to have more of a playdate… And the second thing that’s really amazing about what we do is that we create fine art photos from the experience. The prints that we make are absolutely unrivaled—they are done by our own lab that’s only printing for us, and they are printed on cotton paper… We kind of help people create these heirloom pieces of artwork that last forever.
How did you originally get involved with photography?
I have been photographing people since the second I had a camera when I was 5 years old… But it was really in high school where I started getting very interested in doing [photography] long-term. I would have friends say: “Oh, I’m so not photogenic, I don’t love what I look like in photo-graphs!” And [I would say]: “Let me take a picture of how I see you.” Because everybody is photogenic if the right angle is used and the right lighting is used… I’ve always been naturally drawn to children and I was actually going back to school to get my teaching certificate…and ended up finding this company, [Classic Kids], that combined all the things that I loved.
What do you enjoy most about working with families and children?
The most fun thing for me is when everything just clicks. Like when we’re taking family photos and you can tell that maybe somebody is uncomfortable—[so] we’ll do the standard “everybody looking at the camera” shot, and the “everybody goofing around” shot, so that everybody’s laughing naturally—but then we do that extra something that makes it really fun… The reason that I enjoy that part of the job so much is because there’s always something unexpected in the photos, and we can make that happen…and you know when the parents come back to look at that family photo, they’re like: “I love this because it reminds me of us—it’s not just a photo, it’s us as a family.”
What are some of the options that Classic Kids offers in terms of photo gifts, cards, and prints?
For the holidays we create things like ornaments or keepsake albums. We also do custom framing. Sometimes we do these really nice sterling silver gifts, like keychains or lockets or cufflinks—just things that are very special… [For cards] we work with different vendors as well as our own inhouse design team. Cards range from template based designs to customized layouts… And sometimes people just get their favorite photo [printed]… We have a-la-cart pricing after the session fee. We do the session, and then you come back and see physical proofs—it’s kind of an old-fashioned way of doing it… We can help you narrow it down to the best of the best and we can help people stay within their budget.
What’s new for the fall at Classic Kids?
We are, obviously, huge proponents of black-and-white because it’s so classic and timeless…and it really helps you focus on the features. But through September 12, we’re going to be doing a really fun promotion, called Soulful Sessions, doing photos in color… [It’s a] head-shot expression series shot with really beautiful lenses so that people can have artwork in color that doesn’t just look like everybody else’s.
To learn more about Classic Kids Photography, visit classickids.com!
