P, cousins cubed, and siblings squared

The last of the shoot for Ella's 18 month and Joshua's 3 Year, some solos of Penny and then group shots for the cousins and siblings. I love these kids.



My two kiddos, I love them.

This is Penny

This is my daughter Penny, for her birthday we got the family a membership to Franklin Park Conservatory. She was excited to say the least. A few days after this we were set up to have family pictures done with another photographer, Amanda, of Mom-a-razzi, as part of the Littlest Heroes Project. This "portrait shoot" of Penny was a little different than most of mine, knowing Amanda would most likely get a slew of head shots and great cheesy smiles in a few days, I wanted to stand back and just try to capture Penny, what it is like to spend a few hours with her. This everyone, is my daughter, all 4 years of her.



If it's pink she'll find it. The large rainforest room with the koi pond and butterflies is her favorite. She spent most of the day in there, watching the butterflies. Running and not being able to stand still for a millisecond.



In the Palm House, there is a fountain, you can get quite wet.
I love this set of photos, the wave/splash I caught in the first one, her zeal and delight; paired with her literally shaking water out of her dress, she was dripping wet. I love that in both photos there are water droplets caught in mid-air, on the left on their way up into the air, and on their right on their way down from her dress.



Splashing is fun, just a little.



She's very effective at air drying.



One word: goober
This is my goober at her best.



Penny had not ever been to this courtyard. She remembered it immediately from her cousin Ella's 9 month pictures, she wanted to be "just like Ella" and recreate this specific shot. There's a little bit of a difference between a 9 month old and a 4 year old.



Penny's way is pretty cute too. She wouldn't get down, this is how she rolls when she has found something that amuses her. She pretended to be Ella for a long long time.



Then we went walking and she found a stick that she pretended was a flute, because, well, everybody needs a magic flute.



And then she ran around and found little weeds that were glorious flowers and danced and played, and looked out at a world that was full of fairytales and magic, because she's 4, and her daddy bought her a butterfly.

Sometimes a true portrait of a person isn't in a perfect head and shoulders shot, or in getting them to look at the camera, sometimes it's in following them on their fairy wings and capturing a snapshot here and there.

Princess Party

The invites have been ordered. Hope to have them out to all of Penny's little friends by next weekend. The real ones have a little more information. I really like how the back turned out, it's my favorite.

Princess in the Park

I posted this to my family blog but I want to put them over here too, as my daughter for now, is my oldest subject and I want to show some of the kinds of pictures you can do with an older child. That and I will probably use several of these for her 4 year portraits as they were taken only a month before. That is if she doesn't give me something I like better later, there's always time for more pictures. Anyway here they are, I'll put the invite up once I finish it:

Last week on one of our sunny days I took the kids to Inniswood to run around. Penny, who is super excited about her upcoming birthday party, chose to go there so we could see if it was ready. She had to wear a party dress, to practice. She was very excited.



There were TONS of people there, as we picked a day they had free programs for kids at the park that day. Seriously packed, it was hard to get pictures of Penny without people in the background. And I was actually trying to, as I needed/wanted some for her birthday party invites.



I managed to eek a few natural smiles out of her. Between the random people and Josh charging me right as I was about to release the shutter, it was a miracle I got anything usable.



This left one, well she looks 20, or like a mini-beauty pageant with over-teased hair. You got to love the mid jump on the rope bridge hair. All her good smiles were on the rope bridge, she was all about the rope bridge today, she wants it to be part of the parade she wants to have for her party. The whole thing keeps getting more elaborate.



I think these last two pictures have potential, but I just feel like they are missing something. The last one has all the extras as I was trying to mock it up as the invite but then aborted. I need to practice taking that photo in that part of the waterfall garden, there's an angle or some thing that I am missing. The photos just don't have the oomph I hoped they would. Maybe there just needs to be more plants actually alive and colorful.

Kiddo Card Creations

Guinea Pigs

Lucky for me I have children of my own to be my guinea pigs. Pretty soon I am going to be embarking on my first all flash/lights photos shoot. I've always either preferred or relied on natural light, or at the least had it as back-up. I don't really have the best equipment for that kind of shoot, and I can't really acquire those kinds of lights till I upgrade my camera. I know I can do it with what I have though, so I decided to get a first trial run in today since the kids were in a good mood. For Josh you should note that good mood did not extend to portrait taking. For him I tried not using the flash and just the studio lights, but everything was slightly blurry and I didn't like how he was lit in most of them. Penny I tried several different arrangements, and I definitely think we have something we can work with. That morning I'll steal Penny to be my little guinea pig again, and make sure my flash is stocked with fresh batteries. I just had to share a few cute and funny ones.

Care Bear Header

Because what better for a header for my kids than them as Care Bears beating cancer with a Care Bear Stare, Penny even helped make it.

Cousins

Josh wasn't so much in the mood, we're lucky we got this. Not too bad for our first all cousins group photo.