Photographers – Linnea Lenkus Fine Art Portrait Studios

You have to be ready to perceive it, embrace it, and not prevent that moment. Most parents will say, “No, no, don’t do that,” to their children in my children’s portrait studio. But that’s when I say to the adults, “No, no, don’t hold your child back.”

My mother produced a daughter who has always made a big effort. I never realized until now that she did this because I have been too busy working hard. Not only do I work hard daily at being a good parent, but I work daily at being a good photographer. Does it work? I hope it does. All I know is that I have always been driven and happy.

To me, there is nothing more beautiful and revealing as hands that have worked hard, experienced life, and have aged and rippled. And yet, I am awed by the newness of touch, the exploraton of new life and the contrast of that with protective parenting hands.

My father loved to photograph. He owned a Busch press camera, which I inherited from him. He was a frustrated, almost aspiring photographer. He supported our family instead. His love of photography was passed down to me along with many 4×5 negatives of my family. He gave me my first Kodak Instamatic camera which I keep at my Pasadena photo studio to remind me of where I started.

Do you see why I am walking on air? I am living a beautiful dream. My beautiful babies are here, present in this world and blossoming before me. I am, also, privy to special lives of twins at my portrait studios, re-experiencing my own twins’ newborn stage through the twins photography I create at my studio.

Photographers: Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. – Oscar Wilde

There’s nothing quite so wonderful as a ticklish, squishy bum and this baby has it. I photographed her the other day. I indulged myself. She was a wonderful subject for a baby portrait. She has eyes that languish and a great disposition.

A portrait photographer is even odder in that he or she needs to pull into their brain, their gut and their experience and yet. . .connect. With every portrait I create, I pull in and. . .emerge with a feeling, an emotion or a moment of this family’s life. I connect, I breathe and I express. If I can let my guard done, I can see more than what is in front of me. I see the future, the past and what is, what really is, at this moment.

Tonight I’m thinking of Dexter, who is sick and pulling at my mother strings. These child portraits I did a few months ago. In moments like this, when I am full of worry, I am glad to have these portraits to savor and make me smile.

When I create nude photography I look at the session as a great exercise in studying the human body, graphic lines and the way that light folds over the human form so lovingly.