The Royal Easter Show in Sydney is BIG. This event attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors.

I hadn’t been for over 25 years. Why? It just didn’t appeal enough to me to spend the time and money. The kids had been with grandparents. We had a great, long, exhausting but fun day. Fortunately I like crowds as there were plenty of others who decided to go. So what does the Royal Easter Show have to do with the idea of ‘photos are powerful?’

Let me tell you the story…

In wandering around exhibition stands we passed one called ‘Verve’. It had colourful photos of people on the wall. They was striking. It was NOT your usual family portrait. We were due for a new family portrait as the kids had grown so much since our last one. Verve had an entry form where you could win a $500 package so I entered.

Within a few weeks their package arrived – gorgeous – but that’s another story.

We booked in. Again a friendly experience with good customer service. We attended a beautiful trendy studio in Willoughby Sydney. We all were served tea and hot chocolates as the photographer Simon talked to us. Did I mention the props we had brought in? What makes Verve different is they are trying to capture more than a smile – they wanted to capture something of relationships and what makes us smile. They wanted to capture something of our family’s personality – our story.

We had a tray of home made cupcakes, a bicycle, electric guitar, life jacket, camera, large alphabet letters, fruit, a silly bow tie, soccer ball, a pile of books, a change of clothes – and yes even our pet rabbit Snowy. Simon the photographer was amazing. He worked so hard, was so much fun, and interacted so well with our kids. The time FLEW.

It was an amazing experience just to do the photo shoot. The eventual photos on canvas were simply a bonus.

The next step in the story was coming back to view the gallery of selected photos. Wow. The five of us sat in a mini theatre – again with served drinks, music and comfy chairs. We wanted them all – and there was no pushy selling.

We ended up selecting and paying. Then the next trip back to Verve was to pick them up. We decided to take the whole family yet again as now knew it was going to be fun.  Once again there was drinks, a chance to see the whole gallery and the presentation of our selected pieces.

What struck me was that they were not selling photos – they had created a whole experience. It wasn’t ‘smile for the camera’, it was ‘tickle each other’, drool over some cupcakes, run around, have fun. What makes it interesting is that in many of the photos we are looking at each other rather than the camera. The white background highlights the colours in the photo.

I believe we got more than we paid for in memories – oh and yes the photos are really good too!! Yet when we look at the photos on our dining room wall we are not just seeing us – we are reliving the memory of the experience and the fun we had.

Now how to arrange to purchase some more of the gallery of photos they took!

Check them out at www.verveportraits.com.au