speaker-0 (00:02.872)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Travis Parry Show. Today I'm with Natalie White. She is a legacy portrait photographer working with families who want to tell their story. Everyone thinks she takes pictures, but what she really does is help her clients fall in love with their families all over again. Natalie, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

speaker-1 (00:25.474)
Thank you so much for having me, Travis.

speaker-0 (00:28.224)
Absolutely. Tell tell us your story. How did you get here? What what inspired you to do what you're doing?

speaker-1 (00:35.948)
Well, you know, I've been in business for about twenty-seven years, but a few years after I started in business, my mom passed away really suddenly. and I was feeling a little bit lost and directionalist, and she was kind of my cheerleader, my champion, and kind of the person who helped me get my business off the ground. So but around that same time a client commissioned me to do this really cool project of restoring

some of her old family photographs. We're talking going back like four and five generations, lots of lots of studio portraits, which a lot I don't really always encounter that. Most people just seem to have snapshots. But it really changed the way I felt about my work because when we started going through them, I realized as those portraits were laid out, they told a story of her family.

And she really valued her family legacy. and that just brought something home to me to show that this is not just a picture. This is actually a story in this in this image. And so we actually we restored all these images and we archived them, we printed them archivally, and we had a calligraphy artist put names and

dates on these things and then we made a gallery wall that went all the way up and down her very large staircase at her family's vacation home. So she hadn't seen everything yet. We had installed it before she got there. And when she came in we did sort of like just a little reveal and I watched her walk up to a portrait of her mom and dad on their wedding day and she touched the portrait.

And her face was just one of absolute wonder and amazement. Like she had never seen them before. And and her mom had actually just passed away a year before that too. so she is the founder of a multi-million dollar a year business and she doesn't cry, but she cried when she saw those images. And she told me it was like having them back in her life again.

speaker-1 (02:59.026)
And she said, you know, now my grandchildren who were really small at the time are gonna know their great grandparents. And that's something that I've when she said that, that was a wake up call to me, that this isn't just pictures. I'm not just taking pretty pictures. I'm I'm doing something that's really meaningful for a family who appreciates their legacy and their story.

speaker-0 (03:24.642)
Hmm. That's wonderful. That hits home. That does. Absolutely. Well, you know, you've had to have started someplace. How did how did you? I mean, were you into art? Were you into design? Are you into photography? Like how how did you get to this spot where like, yeah, the, you know, families need me to have this connection. They need to make this connection be, you know, through through the portraits.

speaker-1 (03:54.018)
Yeah, that's a good question. I feel like I've always been I'm all I've always been a creative. I had my first camera when I was about six. I built a pinhole camera when I was in elementary school. In high school, I was always the one walking around with a camera photographing my friends. Half of the yearbook photographs are pictures that I took of my friends and people in school. but I never thought about doing it.

for a living. I I thought if you're gonna be a photographer, you have to be like a National Geographic photographer and take pictures of tigers. And that really wasn't my bag. I've always loved taking pictures of people though. I'm even in my own family, like when I was a kid, I was kind of the family photographer. So my dad had a dark room and he he was a hobby photographer, but he's an engineer and he came at it from the science part. He he was absolutely terrible at taking, you know, decent pictures of people. So

So we we have lots of pictures of our like the tops of our heads cut off because he was playing around with a flash or whatever. But so when I started, I was in my mid-20s and I was kind of like in between things. I had gone to art school for a while. wanted to be an interior designer. Then I don't know, one day my mom said, Why don't you take pictures of kids? You'd be really good at that. And I said, okay, that sounds fun, because

In my neighborhood, I was always like, you know, going down the street to take pictures of the two year olds or whatever while what they were out playing in their backyard or something. So so I started it and knowing what I know now, I might not have ever done it because there's a lot more to being a photographer than just taking pictures. but the road

that I've taken, I think is so interesting because it has led me to all these people. And like I said, I don't think that I really looked at it as like this is a legacy. I thought that these port portraits were important and I knew that. and but but I feel like really the turning point was when my mom passed away the day after I was looking for a picture of the two of us that I liked for the program for the funeral.

speaker-1 (06:16.576)
And we had lots and lots and lots of snapshots, but there was nothing of the two of us. And I had already been a photographer for a few years and I didn't do it. I didn't have one of the two of us. And I it hit me like a ton of bricks. And I said, this should not happen. You know, people should not have to go searching for a snapshot of somebody that they love when they're not there anymore. And so there's people who appreciate that and people who don't, but the people who do appreciate it.

resonate with that and they realize like this is something that I need to I need to do. I need to capture this. So between that happening and then the next year when I started working with this client with the restoration project, that's when I really started thinking this is more than this is more than a pretty picture. It's okay, yes, we want to have a pretty portrait for your wall, but this is more than that. Because

Basically almost any of us can do that at this point, right? We have these phones, we walk around, we take pictures all the time, we're always documenting everything. So if it's just a matter of documentation, then nobody needs me. But if you're looking for something that, you know, if a client is looking for something that's meaningful that is still gonna be meaningful to them twenty five, forty, fifty years from now, then that's when they're ready for something.

That's a step up from just a picture.

speaker-0 (07:44.266)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a great point. So we talk a lot about family and finance on this show and this idea of legacy, you know, family legacy, and that's how we connected originally. So, you know, what what have you seen that your clients struggle with? and why why do they choose this family legacy portrait over just doing some family pictures? Talk to us about what's that main difference for you.

speaker-1 (08:14.398)
a lot of times I have clients who are founders. A lot of my clients are founders and they've been busy, you know, maybe ever since their kids were little or teenagers. They've been very busy building this business. So it's not that family is not important to them because it is, but they just haven't gotten to the point where they're like, I need this legacy piece. and they've been putting it off. And so

what I try to do is help them see, you know, what is the point of this? Is it if is it just again, is it just gonna be a picture or is this going to be something that's gonna tell your family story? And like the client with the restoration project, every other year we do a f portrait of the whole entire extended family that when I first started working with her, it was about twenty five people and now it's about forty five people. So you know, families grow, they change. And that's another thing that families

struggle with, I think, is maybe they do it once and then, you know, ten years later, suddenly the last portrait was ten years ago when, you know, the kids were little and now they're out of high school or what have you. I don't know if that answers your question or not, but one of the things I was thinking too is people I one of the things that I think stops people is they feel like I have pictures on my phone.

So I take pictures all the time. So what do I need to do this for? and they'll look at one of my portraits and say, wow, that's great. But really like, why do they need something else? And so I think that's when we're talking about how how does this portrait fit into your family's visual history? How does it fit into your legacy? What are you going to be thinking about or how are you going to feel when you when you look at this portrait?

20 years from now. If you if you're scrolling through your phone and you're looking at your thousands of pictures and you're looking at like, that's a cute one, that's a cute one, that's a cute one. Fine. That's great. That and that's great. I love my phone. I have 10,000 pictures on my phone too, just like everybody else's. But what are you going to actually be able to appreciate? And so I think that's one of the one of the things that I'm really passionate about is getting those pictures off of whatever media they're on.

speaker-1 (10:38.572)
And getting them out where you can see them and enjoy them and where the family can see them and enjoy them. Because like that restoration project, you know, every time that her grandkids are there, even now that they're grown up, they're all like in college or out of college now. But when they go to the house and they walk up and down that staircase, they're looking at all of those people that made up who they are now. So I feel like that's really a

Big piece of the puzzle is answering questions like how do I fit into this family? Whether you're a business family or you're not a business family, that's still a question that I think everybody asks at some point. And you know, I think that it's really good to have things like that out where people can see them. And and that's what she always says is, you know, they can look at those pictures and see.

you know what? That's a great granddad. I look a little bit like him. How you know, how I wonder if he was like me. And then that might foster a conversation, you know, what was he like? Tell me what he liked to do. And you know, I feel like it just helps to tie the family bonds a little tighter, which in this day and age is not a bad thing.

speaker-0 (11:59.916)
No, you're 100% correct. There's a lot here. You know, family legacy isn't just about money. It's not just the financial side. Right. But it is absolutely these family connections. I have connections with grandparents, certain family members that have have passed and cousins and things that are just are different than, you know, maybe some uncles or aunts that that maybe should be closer. And and I think p everybody has that in their family. They have people who they're close to.

but this idea that you can then encapsulate that in emotion, you know, on the wall. because you're exactly right. On these smart quote unquote smart devices, right? I've got I've got thousands of tens of thousands of pictures. And then I've got to store them someplace. And and then what do we do? Well, we we tend to you know, if if we're trying to save them, you know, now we're

There's a lot of people who now are printing these off into books so we can look at the photos that we've taken. Like the this idea that now it's so easy to take pictures. but you know, they might not always be the best pictures, the most flattering, you know, the best situations, whatever. You may you may have some really funny ones, which is great. But having something that can, you know, be wall-worthy of somebody coming in and seeing your family.

plus this idea that you personally can connect to them. That's that's really that's really important. Now, do you do these as pictures? Are these paintings? Maybe tell us exactly like how do you how do you encapsulate these portraits? Like what are they, what's the medium?

speaker-1 (13:39.638)
Okay. So I am a photographer, so everything starts with a photograph. they start with a digital file. and my portraits always end up on an archival substrate, somehow or other. Some once in a while I'll have somebody say, Can you just print off some pictures for me? And I say, Nope, because guess what? I know what's gonna happen with those pictures. They're gonna end up in a box in your closet. So I want the portraits to be useful.

And the only way they're gonna do that is if you can see them. So I c everything goes on stretched canvas. and it's in you know, canvas that's imported from India, so it's like a hundred percent cotton and it's stretched onto a hardwood frame. I have a very, very skillful place that does that for me out on the West Coast. they've been doing it for fifty years. They actually kind of pioneered

this type of this actual type of portrait. and then my signature piece is the paint the photograph with oil on top of it. That sounds stupid. let me say that. Let me say that over again. so my signature piece is a hand-oiled painting but it's on the photograph. So what that means is

that you're kind of having the best of both worlds. You're having this archival photograph with all the realism that you have in a photograph, which is what people love about photographs, right? We can see all the little details. Yeah. But then we also have the pain the hand painting part of it, which brings it to kind of a different level. It adds some dimension, and it just creates it so that it's literally a one of a kind piece. And even if I

have occasionally I've had people where they're like, I want three of these, but each one is still gonna be a little bit individual because it's not just printed. and this is not to be confused with those ads that you see where you can send off a picture to somewhere and they send you back an oil painting. It is it's not the same thing. so so the other one of the other things I really encourage people to do is

speaker-1 (16:05.848)
to do actual photo albums. because, you know, I mean, we're not gonna hang put something on every wall in your house. So we're gonna pick the one that's kind of the most important portrait with the most gravitas, and that's gonna go on the wall. And then there's things that we can do to kind of hang on to some of those other images that maybe you don't have room for on your walls, but that are still just as important to you.

speaker-0 (16:35.042)
That's nice. Yeah. So then you can flip through and see and and view other yeah. Other photos. I like that. So, you know, you kind of have a this custom process, and I've seen the photos on your website and things. It's they're beautiful. They're they're t the word that I keep coming to my keeps coming to my mind is timeless. Like this becomes something that nobody you don't want to take this off the wall. I see

I see, you know, we get our pictures done every year as a family and our family's always changing and everybody else's family, the same thing. Like you you want to have these memories, but they're usually up there for a year and then they get changed out again. It seems like this portrait is something that you put on the wall and you you probably don't intend to take it down, at least not for a very long time until the family changes significantly or something.

speaker-1 (17:24.762)
I have I have a couple of clients and we joke that they need to add on to their house because they've been doing portraits with me for so long and th she you know, one of my clients she can't help herself. She just when we do portraits, she's always like, I'm not gonna do anything really big this time. And then she's like, I've gotta have it. So we're like, Okay, where are we gonna put it? So fortunately they have a they own a business and they have an office. They have a doctor's office. So we have wall space to hang to put things in there. But but sh

you know, there is something to be said about having a portrait that really is a legacy piece because I think that we do we live in a world that everything is kind of instantaneous and disposable. And I feel like something with longevity, just I don't know, it it just adds I feel like it adds something to your home for one thing. But aside from that, it

It there's something about it when you you know, when I look at my own portraits on my wall of my family. I have a portrait of my sisters and I and we are super close and you know, we fight just like any other normal sisters, but we love each other and I've got a portrait of the three of us on the on a wall and you know, I don't stop and stare at it all the time, but it's there. And so every time I walk through that room, that

kind of impression of how close the three of us are sinks a little further in. And so I feel like for people with kids, that's so important because it's so easy. And and I feel like the world that we live in encourages people to sort of go out and do their own thing, which is great. But what about those family ties that create that family legacy? there's something

really meaningful about that. And you can't sometimes I feel like for me, even it's hard to put it into words, but I I know when I watch my clients and they look at their portraits that, you know, the question is never, wow, you know, they never say, I wish we had waited till later to do this. Usually they're saying, I wish we had done it. I wish we had done it sooner. and can I just say a little bit about

speaker-1 (19:50.318)
kind of how I talk with clients, how we get the ball rolling when I when I meet a new client. I start every pretty much every conversation I have with a new client starts with how do you want to feel when you see this portrait on your wall? So that's different things for different people. It's not always the same. But nobody has ever told me

I want to feel like this is a portrait that in a couple of years I'll be sick of. You know, I mean, nobody has ever told me that. So so there's a whole we we have a little bit of a process that we go through. I definitely have a framework for working with clients. because we're not sure. so again, going beyond something that's just a

speaker-0 (20:38.926)
Framework.

speaker-1 (20:45.166)
pretty picture. You know, we're not just talking about people's faces. We're talking about the feeling and we're talking about relationships. so I ask questions about the family. I always kind of joke with people and say, you know, we're gonna go out, it's like a little medical history. we're gonna talk about your family, we're gonna talk about what you like to do together, where you where the client comes from. Usually it's the mom or grandmother that I'm talking to. And so

you know, her background always plays into why she wants to do this portrait for one reason or another. what season of life are you in? What relationships are the most important? You know, is it the whole family that you're concerned about? Or right now is it that you saw your parents last week and you realized, wow, you know, they all of a sudden sort of got older.

in in a few weeks. They you know, they they got two years older. And so how are we going to capture that? and and to make sure we do that now before they start losing their memory or they're not as present as they used to be. I ask questions like what do you want future generations to see when they look at this portrait? And those kind of questions I feel like really support

the story that we're gonna tell. Like once we once I get once we talk about all that, then I can start forming a picture. A lot of times people will come and the first thing they want to talk about is, I want to do it here and I want it to look like this. And I see this picture here and I want it to look we're gonna wear these clothes or something. and I say, wait, wait, like let's back up, let's back up. Because we want all of those details, whether it's the clothes or the location or the time of day or how many people are going to be in the portrait. We want all that to

we want we want that to tell the st be part of telling the story. And so I have to ask those questions to get there.

speaker-0 (22:51.48)
So yeah. No, so I mean, this is this isn't just sh, you know, schedule a time, you pick the outfit, and yeah, we'll meet at whatever place you want to shoot from, and I'll take some pictures. Right. This is this is a this is a a different process. So you're starting off by doing family history with people. You're asking them questions, you're talking about their connection, you're you're getting the feel. Why is that so important? And how does that show up in the picture? How does it show up in this portrait?

should I say.

speaker-1 (23:24.768)
I feel like it's important for one thing because it helps me it helps me build rapport with my clients, for one thing. And and I, you know, I'm not gonna pry. If people won't answer a question, then I'll work around it. But I do feel like when people share those things with me, it helps me to get a feel for who they are and what they wanna see. Because they can't tell me. If I ask a client,

What what is the story that you want to tell with this portrait and what do how will you tell that? They have no idea. They they they look at me look dear in the headlights. But if I ask all these other questions, then I can formulate something that will tell that. And by the time we get to that point, usually we've developed enough of a relationship that I'll say, okay, here's what I think we should do.

And then they say, yeah, that's exactly on it. And but I always tell people, you know, if that's not hitting the nail on the head, then please tell me because I want to make sure I get that. And if we need to talk a little more, then then that's what we're gonna do. Cause I feel like the end result, of course, is the portrait. And it's if this is something that's gonna hang on your wall for twenty or thirty or forty years, then it needs to sing to you.

It it needs to when you walk up to that portrait, I want it to say exactly what you were feeling in that moment when we created that portrait. So, and and like I said, that's different for different people. I don't know if that answers your question.

speaker-0 (25:06.966)
Yeah, totally. Yeah. So, you know, what most of my clients are trying to build or are trying to preserve their family legacy. And, you know, their business owners, their founders, they're struggling with time and balance and trying to keep their marriage healthy and strong and they themselves healthy and strong and keep this connection with their family. That tends to be that next reason that they mentioned. Like, yeah, I want my I want my family to be tight, I want to be connected.

we can spend hours talking about how families stay connected and society's ills and all these things. But you know, aside from that, business owners who are, you know, putting things in place and they they've got the financial pieces, the legal pieces, the accounting piece, they've got all these, maybe even a family bank put together, all these things that are in place. Why is it so important then for these types of individuals to have this family portrait?

as a part of their family legacy. What, why do you suggest this to be, you know, you know, I know it's a missing piece, but what why is that such a missing piece for for those who, you know, you've done work with what would they say, maybe in their own words?

speaker-1 (26:24.76)
I think part of it is that, you know, these are people who have been busy. You know, they've been I mean, we all only have 24 hours a day, and when you're building a business, you're using a lot of your time and energy to do that. but when these clients value their families, what they realize is that

Creating something that is can be part of their family legacy is important. And portraits become part of that visual history. I mean, that's I feel like that's really it in a nutshell. They they become anchors for moments, for memories that will live on. So a generation, you know, a generational portrait

might not mean much to you when you're three, but when you're twenty five and you're starting to work in the business or you're starting to take on a bigger role at the business, you can look at that portrait and you see that in a different light and you see yourself as part of this much bigger thing. which I think is

is very important. I think it's important for all families, but especially for business families, because what I always read is that the business part of the family of the, you know, the business part of being in a family business can interfere with the family part of being the family. So you know, you need something that will help families to gel together and to see themselves as a whole. And

I, you know, talking, having advisors is is great, but there's something about seeing yourself, literally seeing yourself in a portrait with your family that makes you it does something in your brain and it makes your you know, it makes you think, okay, here I here I am for you know, I'm part of this family and

speaker-1 (28:47.234)
you know, I have maybe some responsibility that I wouldn't have thought about if I didn't stop to think about it. So I feel like they're they're kind of you know, they're like almost like a time portal sort of, so that you can go back and, you know, if you I've I've had clients who have family businesses who wanna do that photo curation and they go back and they look at all those things because that helps tie the past to the present.

and to the future. So it's a it's a continuity thing.

speaker-0 (29:23.564)
Yeah, continuity, maybe, maybe even a little because they're so busy that you know it sounds like to me there's this this desire to get reconnected to make this like okay, okay, yeah, things have been crazy. I I really want my family to be more connected and be what I hoped it to be. But things are so busy. Plus, you add in the dynamic of family business. That's a whole different story. Right.

you know, a lot of founders and and business owners I work with too have, you know, the family as part of their business, not everyone. But that is it, that is a totally different situation. I grew up in a family business, third generation. And yeah, there's a lot of stories we could talk about there. There's a lot of issues, there's a lot of great things. But you know, what you mentioned there is like, okay, this is this is sort of the picture of what they desired it to be, what the outcome. And that could even serve as a a motto, as a serve.

as a maybe model's a wrong word, but as a direction, as a goal to like, hey, we want this in our family.

speaker-1 (30:30.592)
Like a almost like a visual mission statement.

speaker-0 (30:33.358)
There we go. Thank you. Yeah. So what would you say? What are what are some of the what are some of the biggest kickbacks you get from others, like pushback on this like, we don't need a portrait. I mean, what what do other people say that way?

speaker-1 (30:49.41)
I think we go back to the thing that everybody has a camera in their pocket now. So they think, I can just take some snapshots when I'm with my family. I've seen pictures of people who are well known who have done family retreats and the pictures that they show online are

snapshots of everybody in their shorts and t-shirts, which there there's nothing wrong with that. I think like go for it. That's great. and you want that too. But are are they going to hang that on their wall so that all their kids and grandkids can see that? Is it going to be in the family office, you know, in the office where everybody walks through every day on their way to work. another, I think one of the things that is the biggest

problem is getting everybody together. Especially if it's a I mean, if if you're talking about parents with younger kids at home, that's a different story. But when you're talking about families who are spread out, or, you know, y there's kids in college and there's grown kids with their own children and everybody has their own schedules, that is probably the number one thing that I think

families run into. And I think sometimes it's just too overwhelming. The idea of trying to get everybody together if you're not completely determined to do it can be really overwhelming. How, how is this going to happen, you know? and so some of the families that I've worked with, one of the ways they do it is they do it at a family reunion or a family retreat. And they everybody's gonna be there already. and usually what happens is the business or the founder is

is making plans for everybody to be there. So I'm working with them and that's when everybody's together and that's when we can that's when we can create something.

speaker-0 (32:52.29)
Yeah, this is a phenomenal idea. because you probably your clientele and those who who I'm working with on family legacy, financial legacy, they they're you know struggle to get people together. Family reunions are a thing. And I find that most who really care about legacy, they want retreats, they want to do these reunions, you know, whatever they call them, so they can keep that connection strong.

I mean, this is where we can dive into society. Society wants to divide. Society used to be, you know, a long, long time ago, it used to be this we grow up on a family farm together, we work together, we play together, and then families grow up next to each other. And that's how we form communities. And then it became this idea we got to move to big cities, you know, industrialization, and then we got to go find ourselves at college. All this is made up. This is honestly all made up.

It's made to divide and make us very individualized people, which society has really, really honed in on this and I think capitalized on it, right? Everything is individualized. I phone, you know, like the individual. It reigns supreme. And however, it's breaking apart families. It breaks apart marriages. I could go on and on with this about marriage. in my dissertation, I wrote a whole thing about this.

How individualization is actually destroy destroying families. So the fact that you're bringing them back, this isn't just about legacy. I think this is healing. I think it's healing for for our society, for our nation. and I I love that you're doing that because it makes total sense. It's it's good for you, but it's also it's good for them, right? If they should be having these connections, what a great reason to get together, right? If not just for this portrait, right? Just just to then.

Okay, now let's hang out together. Now let's do some other fun things. So for those that that want to get started on this, they want to do a portrait, they you know, they're interested, they want to have connection with their family. Is is the first step, you know, is it hey, let's do a family event and let's talk about it? Is it you know, looking at family?

speaker-1 (34:45.997)
Right.

speaker-0 (35:08.418)
photos and and and then calling you. Obviously to contact you, that's a different story. But for for families thinking about this, like, yeah, I'd like to do something like this. What is their first step? What's something that you'd recommend?

speaker-1 (35:24.728)
I would say the first step is to see when everybody can get together and and then just go for it because there has to be one person in the family who spearheads it. I mean, occasionally it's a a group effort, but I find with almost all of my clients that it's one person in the family who's determined that this is gonna get done. And sometimes it's the founder, but sometimes it's somebody else in the family.

Maybe it's the founder's wife, maybe it's a grandchild, maybe it's a child, but you know, an adult child. But yeah, I would say g figure out when everybody can get together. That's the number one thing. Because if you start talking about a portrait, but then you can't get everybody together, then how's that gonna happen? so I think and I I also think I know that there's this trend, I've seen it, where

photographers in different places will photograph whatever part of the family that lives there, and then they put it together in in a in composite photograph at the end. And I think that, you know, that's a nice idea. but there's something about everybody being together that is part of that feeling of the portrait, which you can't get if you just photoshop people into it later. I mean, so it's just not the same thing. And

You know what, when I think about like this one family that I've been photographing for more than twenty years and doing their large group family portraits every year. When I think about those, we always we're always laughing, you know, because we're trying to squeeze all these people into a room and the kids have grown up, they know exactly what to do now. I mean, the kids who s who were little, like when I started

There's not even a question, if there's a family portrait, they know to show up in a white shirt and khakis, the the boys and the girls will show up in a white dress or something like that. I mean, I don't even have to tell them anymore. And it's not that it's their favorite thing to do, but you know, one of the cousins of this family asked me a few years ago. She's like, What are we gonna do when when this when our like

speaker-1 (37:46.262)
Our aunt and uncle aren't here anymore and we're not doing these family portraits at our family reunions. And I said, I don't know, that's a good question. Maybe you should think about, you know, how everybody feels about this. Is it just because your aunt wanted everybody here in this portrait? Or do other people do the rest of you appreciate this enough to keep up the tradition? So I think, I think there's I think I went off on a tangent there, but but I feel like

There's definitely something to be said for getting I mean, I know it's hard and it can be hard, especially if people are scattered around and if it's a bigger family, but make the time because surely out of the whole entire year, you could find three days where everybody can get together somewhere. And you don't need a whole week. I've a lot of families will do a reunion for a whole week, but some of them are like five days.

three or four days because that's the maximum when they can get everybody together at the same time. so yeah, I think I feel like for most of my clients, that's the number one challenge is getting everybody in the same place at the same time. And you know what I have, I mean, sometimes I have families and there's like one person missing because they just couldn't get there or they didn't want to get there or whatever. And it's like, well, okay, this is

You know, if there's forty people and one's missing, we can Photoshop them in. But sometimes people just say, Well, let's just leave it the way it is, because this is the story that we're telling for the moment, you know. and I feel like that's really, really what matters is what what's this what's the story that you're telling? And that's, you know, again, we go back to feeling how is everybody gonna feel about this portrait? And I find it

Hard to think that you'll have a great feeling about a family portrait if you were taking pictures of people in different places and sticking them together in a file. So it's just I feel like it's really not the same feeling and so make I make the effort to get people together.

speaker-0 (39:59.384)
But hey, I know we've we could talk about this for a long time. And I really have enjoyed this, have enjoyed learning about you, and hopefully others have as well. If they want to get a hold of you, Natalie, if they're like, hey, it's time we should finally do this. We need to do a family reunion. We need a reason to bring people back together. We need to have tighter family in these crazy times we live in. whatever the excuse, whatever the reason, they want to add this to their family legacy. It's the last.

thing that they need to do to make sure that it's solidified for them. So maybe their kids remember them someday, right? Or the grandkids or great grandkids, who they are, who grandma and grandpa were. Right. what what's the best way to get a hold of you and to and to to help, you know, get your your expertise in this process.

speaker-1 (40:45.588)
I would say they can just go to my website. it's just a one pager. It's Natalie White Legacy Portraits dot com and you can send me a message from there. I'm also on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn all the time, so if you want to look me up there, I'd be happy to connect.

speaker-0 (41:04.014)
Perfect. LinkedIn, Natalie White Legacyportraits.com. Yes. Such a pleasure to have you here. Any last tidbits, thoughts that you want to add to this conversation before, you know, we're we're done for today.

speaker-1 (41:18.594)
Yeah, I just I just tell people don't wait. Like if if this is something you've been thinking about or if this hits home for you, don't wait. Because terminal procrastination can take over and it is a little bit of a process. I try to take as much off of my clients' plates as far as the planning as I can. but that the little bit of effort that you're gonna put into it.

you'll still be you'll be enjoying the results like decades from now and and other people will be enjoying the results decades from now. So don't wait, don't wait until there's a crisis. Go ahead and and do it now and and then you'll have lots of years to enjoy it.

speaker-0 (42:08.438)
Yeah, wonderful, wonderful advice. Thank you for being here again and for being on the show. And everyone else, until next time, remember to live life on purpose together.

speaker-1 (42:19.448)
Thanks, Travis.

speaker-0 (42:20.728)
Thank you.

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