Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1113.
Having a family portrait taken.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1113.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is a dialogue between a mother and a father who are trying to get a picture taken of the entire family.
Let's get started.
Okay, everybody, take your places.
We're in our places.
Can't the photographer just take the photo?
We have to pose.
The whole point is to look natural.
If you wanted a natural family photo...
Why are we in a portrait studio in the middle of a sitting?
I want us to stand in front of a nice background and pose with nice props.
I'm tired of looking at the photos that we take.
They're not very good. and require hours of touching up or creative cropping.
Instead, we're supposed to look natural wearing color-coordinated clothing and standing in unlikely poses.
Don't be like that.
Generations to come will cherish this family photo.
How about if I ask the photographer to take some shots just of you?
You mean like the headshots Hollywood stars get?
Uh, sure, if that's what you'd want.
Well...
In that case, I'll need to have my hair cut, get my makeup done, and buy a new outfit.
What have I gotten myself into?
The title of this episode is Having a Family Portrait, P-O-R-T-R-A-I-T, Taken.
A portrait in this dialogue refers to a photograph.
Usually when we talk about having a portrait taken, we're talking about having a photograph in...
Usually some sort of formal setting or when you are wearing very nice clothes.
It's a photograph that might be used for putting on your wall or even, in some cases, for giving to other people as a gift.
In the old days, before cameras, people had portraits painted of them.
But most people don't have painted portraits.
They have portraits that are photographs.
Dad begins by saying, OK, everybody, take your places.
To take your place means to sit or stand where you're supposed to for some sort of performance or show or, in this case, for taking a photograph.
Dad is telling everyone to take their places, to go where they're supposed to go.
The mother says, we're in our places.
Can't the photographer just take the photo?
The photographer is the person whose job it is to take photographs.
Dad says we have to pose.
To pose P-O-S-E is to hold your body in a particular position, especially so that you can be photographed or painted.
You put your body in a certain position and someone paints you in that position or, in this case, takes a photograph of you.
Dad says the whole point is to look natural.
The whole point means the main purpose of something, the reason you are doing something.
Of course, this is a little funny because if you are posing, you're really not...
Doing something naturally.
To do something natural would be not to pose, not to put your body in a particular fixed position in order to have a photograph taken of it.
Mom says if you wanted a natural family photo, why are we in a portrait studio in the middle of a sitting room?
Mom has a good point here.
She's telling Dad that they don't need to go to a portrait studio in order to get a natural look to their photograph.
A portrait studio would be a place you go to get your photograph taken for some formal event usually.
Only professional photographers typically have portrait studios, places where people can go and get their picture taken.
Portrait studios often have special lighting and backgrounds that are used as part of the process of taking the portrait.
A sitting.
S-I-T-T-I-N-G is a period of time when you sit in front of a camera or an artist in order to have your painting made or your photograph taken.
Dad says I want us to stand in front of a nice background and pose with nice crops.
A background is what is seen behind you.
And, as I just mentioned, portrait studios or photo studios often have special backgrounds, special pieces of paper or material that look like mountains or fields, or something that you stand in front of in order to have your photograph taken.
Dad wants a nice background. with nice props, P-R-O-P-S.
A prop is an object that is usually used for a performance, such as a play, but it could also be used in a photo session, that is, when you are taking photographs of someone, such as in this case.
A prop is any physical object that would be used as part of a performance or in what we might call a photo shoot S-H-O-O-T, which is a session or a period of time when many photographs are taken of a person.
Dad says I'm tired of looking at the photos that we take.
They're not very good and require hours of touching up or creative cropping.
To touch up a photograph is to improve it by making small changes to it.
Nowadays, of course, with Programs such as Photoshop, people are able to change photographs, often making them look nothing like the original photograph, the actual thing that was photographed, or person.
Cropping C-R-O-P-P-I-N-G refers to cutting the top, bottom or sides of a digital photograph so that you eliminate certain things that were in the original photo.
Mom says instead we're supposed to look natural wearing color-coordinated clothing.
Mom is sort of making fun of Dad here.
She's saying that they don't look very natural if they're wearing color-coordinated clothing.
Color coordinated means that the clothes, the colors of the clothes, somehow match, that they look good together.
Mom, of course, is saying that this isn't very natural looking.
Dad says to Mom, don't be like that.
Don't be like.
That is what you say to someone who you think is making fun or is behaving in a way that you don't like.
Dad says generations to come will cherish this family photo.
The expression generations G-E-N-E-R-A-T-I-O-N-S to come refers to people in your family who are younger than you or who will be born in the future.
Future generations, we might also say.
To cherish C-H-E-R-I-S-H means to admire something and to value it, to think it's very important, to think it is worthy.
What Dad is saying is that in the future, his children and their children and their children will cherish this photo.
They will think it very valuable.
Mom says, however, I doubt it.
She doesn't think so.
Dad says, how about if I ask the photographer to take some shots just of you?
Meaning a photograph just of the mom.
Mom says, you mean like the headshots Hollywood stars get?
A headshot, H-E-A-D S-H-O-T, is a photograph of just your neck and your head.
It doesn't include the rest of your body.
This is very popular here in Los Angeles, here in Hollywood, where actors and actresses try to get jobs in the television industry or the movie industry or in modeling, and they have a photograph made of themselves.
We call that photograph of their head their headshot.
I personally don't have a headshot.
The funny thing is when you go to restaurants here in los angeles you can look up on the wall and most of them even restaurants that aren't very good quality will have headshots on the wall of actors and actresses who've eaten there.
Usually the photograph, the headshot, is signed by that person.
Sometimes they're famous people, sometimes they're people that you've never heard of before.
Anyway, Mom is asking if she can have a headshot made of herself.
Dad says, sure, if that's what you want.
Mom then says well, in that case, in this situation, then I'll need to have my hair cut, get my makeup done and buy a new outfit.
To have your makeup done means to have someone do it on you professionally.
To have your makeup done in such a way that it looks perfect or makes you look perfect.
A new outfit would be a new set of clothing.
Dad is now regretting offering mom a headshot photograph, he says, what have I gotten myself into?
Meaning, what trouble or difficulty have I created now for myself by saying that?
Now, when I was younger, We a couple of times had a family portrait taken of my family, my brothers and sisters and my parents.
Now remember, I come from a very large family.
I have 10 brothers and sisters, so there were 13 people in the family portrait.
The portrait was taken as part of a little book that was published by the church that I went to as a child.
The church would bring in a professional photographer and families could come and have their family portrait taken to be used as part of this little book.
Well, the family portrait that I remember was when I was about five or six years old.
When we all got up...
In front of the camera to have the photograph taken.
The photographer said oh no, just one family at a time.
And my father said, well, this is just one family.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Okay, everybody, take your places.
We're in our places.
Can't the photographer just take the photo?
We have to pose.
The whole point is to look natural.
If you wanted a natural family photo, why are we in a portrait studio in the middle of a sitting?
I want us to stand in front of a nice background and pose with nice props.
I'm tired of looking at the photos that we take.
They're not very good and require hours of touching up or creative cropping.
Instead, we're supposed to look natural wearing color coordinated clothing and standing in unlikely poses.
Don't be like that.
Generations to come will cherish this family photo.
I doubt it.
How about if I ask the photographer to take some shots just of you?
You mean like the head shots Hollywood stars get?
Uh, sure, if that's what you'd want.
Well, in that case, I'll need to have my hair cut, get my makeup done, and buy a new outfit.
What have I gotten myself into?
Generations to come, I think, will cherish the wonderful scripts written by our wonderful script writer, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
