Any mum will tell you it’s hard to get a decent photograph of your toddler, but some mums are so determined to capture the moment they are spending up to $3000 on a personal “photo coach”.
Mother-of-two Rohi Mirza Pandya, 40, from New York, has enlisted the help of photo coach Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick who runs Photosanity.
Alethea’s aim is to help parents “capture natural moments that would otherwise fade into a blur and be lost forever”. Her workshops range from $25 for a one-off workshop to $3000 for a year-long program.
Rohi says she reached out to Alethea because she wanted to learn how to take better pictures of her five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter.
“I have a personal trainer at the gym. I should have a personal trainer for photography,” she told website DNAinfo New York.
“I consider it the same kind of thing — motivation, someone to help you out. Otherwise, I’m a total slacker.”
Rohi says the course not only helped her to take better photos, but also taught her how to use the “fancy’ camera she bought when her first child was born.
“I really am busy, so I don’t have the time to look at my manuals. So Alethea can tell me, ‘This is what to do’,” she says.
Alethea, a former architect and interior designer, began her family portrait photography business after the birth of her first son, Liam.
“I call myself a ‘coach’ because it’s not just about delivering content, it’s about motivating and inspiring people,” she said of her business.
Her first workshop attracted 15 mums. A year later, her business took off online and she has since worked with more than 500 families.
“I work with a lot of type-A professional women, but they’re surprisingly lacking in confidence about their photography,” she said.
“A lot of what I hear is, ‘I’m always missing the moment. By the time I take out my camera they’ve moved onto something else or my picture is blurry or my kid makes cheesy poses’.
“For a lot of people, the camera gets between them and their kids. So I really work with them to see how they can flip that around.”
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