Red Shirted

He just can't believe they are going to the Rose Bowl.

Three of a Kind

This family had such character! We had a lot of fun, that is after we got our blood moving! Who knew it would be so cold that early in the morning? The kids were real sports and although we never got the three of them in a shot together, we got some really beautiful shots. Mom even posed for a few quick shots at the end for Dad to put up in his locker at the station (and you should know all three kids were in full meltdown not more than 15 feet from us, it was awesome). Next time we have the kids wear coats or plan a warmer session!

No grasshoppers were harmed

This was a shoot full of surprises and laughter. Little man didn't want to get out of the car, and Mom was worried he'd be shy the whole shoot. Nope! He was my super child model and the Princess Puppy was the one we had a hard time getting to smile. Wonderful siblings who were kind and playful together, it was a great adventure and a beautiful evening. Hope it was worth the wait for the proof gallery!

Ella Bella

I am a little partial seeing as she is my niece, but I think Ella has the most beautiful eyes. And those are all hers not some trick of photoshop. I am so happy to finally be posting these, we delayed the shoot till after her vacation and then snuck it in before I went to california and Josh's surgery. Now, at last, here they are, Happy Big One Ella!

Princess

Alison is just a few weeks younger than my daughter and is a lot of fun. Where my daughter guffaws like she was raised by sailors, Alison has the cutest little tittering giggle, and she giggles a lot. We had so much fun and she was just so darn cooperative and happy I didn't have to take a bijillion photos hoping for just a few good ones and a bunch I could make look nice artistically. Besides we had left her little brother and bot my kids with a friend who already has three kids, we didn't want to be gone too long. Just an absolutely delightful session, I honestly was beside myself, I'm used to uncooperative toddlers and grumpy preschoolers.

Baby Sister

Mom deserves a gold star for venturing out at midday in 90 degree heat with a 4 year old, and pregnant. Surprisingly it wasn't as steamy as we feared it would be and both mama and big sister were radiant. The proof set is only 10 shots, which qualifies this this as a "mini-shoot" but with ten winners like these, who needs a full 30 proof set?

Enjoy Yourself, Invite Me to Your Party!

Here's a great idea, sit back, relax, and enjoy your party or event. Let me worry about where I put the camera. Watch your baby eat her first birthday cake and be with her, I've got the pictures covered! Okay really this is my niece and my brother didn't hire me to come out, but I wouldn't mind doing more parties/occasions. It was a lot of fun. So if you've got a party coming up or an event you just want to be part of and not photographing, invite me, I'll take pictures, lots of them. I can't help myself. Oh and below, my daughter's birthday, I managed to get these while chasing them through a park, but just an idea of how having a photographer along can really be fun for your next occasion.

A Walk in the Park

As always click on a particular photo to view it larger.

I've had this session on stand by for so long it's almost criminal, thank you to Avery's family for being patient. I sort of sped through the last few shoots and getting orders ready for a bunch of them that I burnt my brain out, and got a cold. My brain finally turned back on this week. And of course with all that elapsed time, I was feeling the pressure to really deliver. I hope these do the trick.



Avery thought sticking her tongue out was far better than smiling, or laughing, or looking pleasant. Making silly faces, totally in. Well I guess it beats past shoots with her where it was all petrified and two smiles. The lighting by these tulips was really harsh, we were out at midday and in some of the shots it just did things to her skin with shadowing that I wasn't a big fan of. My solution was a bit of a glowing overlay, and it was a fine line to tread between softening out the harsh midday sun and making it too hazy. But then in some of them she looked just like an ethereal little angel tiptoeing through the tulips, each photo I went back and forth on how much processing, I literally took two days on just these photos. Yup, obsess much?


Then I just decided to stop fiddling with them, she's darn cute no matter if I overprocessed them or not. Besides this digital darkroom stuff is still new to me, so if they are a bit overdone for your taste I'll take no offense! I still insist that you cannot deny she's darn cute.



I had a very difficult time collaging/storyboarding this shoot. We had so many spots we shot at, each with their own lighting and composition and then even within the locations the shots didn't cooperate as nicely as would have liked, but I still got some things I was happy with. The one at right is one picture from wach location, kind of a full shoot collage and it turned out better than I thought it would.



Oh the daffodils. If you remember from the sneak peek, out of respect to mama, who is pregnant, we sort of parked illegally to get these. taking them is not the problem, parking our cars right next to them was. So I got a lot less from this location than I could have. You get some funny ones like Avery chasing her mom out of the flowers and then the "but I don't want to stand here it's creepy." face.



Of course I had just found my angle that I super fell in love with as the ranger showed up to tell us to move the cars. I come there a lot so I wasn't bold enough to keep shooting while they waited for us to move our cars, and Avery would have bailed if mom had moved her car while I tried to take some more. But we did get these two gems, the one at right, top 3 from this shoot, I "heart" this photo.



Another pair collage, a diptych, it's what all the cool kids are doing, and I so want to be a cool kid. Don't you feel smarter now? You learned a new word that's relatively useless outside photography!



These two are just to prove that Avery did let me take pictures of her in the waterfall garden, she's been a bit stubborn about that, but I'm wearing her down, slowly.



That's an almost smile in the waterfall garden, you are so busted kid! And how can you not love the glowing crown of backlit hair in these? She already looks like a little angel anyway!



Variety is the spice of life and we decided to try a new spot in the park and see what we could do. The best part about this little meadow was the park bench that had almost 50 feet of clearance on any side. It was in the middle of the meadow, no people to walk by and distract her and I could get at any angle I wanted. Again, with the tongue, don't worry you haevn't seen the last of it.



I don't even remember where her mom was, she was next to her on the bench for a lot of this location, but what I do remember was after I took this first picture I hissed through my teeth, "Don't move, she's perfect, I want to get a few more." Last time it was her random unposed crossing of her feet sitting on the stone bench, this time it was the perfectly overlapped hands on the side of the bench. I'm not kidding, the kid does this all by herself.



Like it or not, this first one, she was looking straight at her mom. It was the most adorable exchange between her and mama. Her left hand is even on her hip but I had to crop it out since I took this over her mom's shoulder and that part was less than picture perfect. The one at right is Avery thinking "If I walk back at them one more time, really slow, and really cute, maybe the picture lady will get whatever it is she is rambling about and let me go play somewhere else."



And so we did, to molest some more unsuspecting flowers, before the rangers found us again.



For this series we were under an evergreen stand near the parking lot, she was sitting on her mama's leg which I was able to crop around, and she just looked up at me. It was like this picture all over again, and I love me that picture from her 18 months shoot. Her eyes caught the most amazing reflection off of the cloudless sky and the overarching trees, oh and me, hovering over her. Daddy's going to need a very big stick, unless we just hammer out the pre-nup for my Josh now, really I think it's the sensible thing.



Oooo I caught you smiling again, but then you had to go back to the tongue. You are still cute. the first one she was literally straddling her mom sitting chest to chest and leaning backwards, it's a unique angle to say the least.



A little pairing, and then she let mom's lap have a rest and got up to explore our little secluded alcove. It was a very serious entrancing spot of the park.



Show me the MONEY!! Thank you Avery, you made me work for an hour for it, and like always right when we were about to wrap things up, you gave me the best smiles of the day. I can't decide which one I like better. Under the shade her skin looks so creamy smooth it's not fair.



I loved how rosey her lips were, almost the exact shade of her shirt, when she wasn't making silly faces.



Just a little suggested set for a Four 4x6 matted frame. Let me know if you want to order the monogram red 4x6, it should go well with any combination of pictures from the shoot as it is a color swatch from her shirt.



Everything here is sized 8x10. Portraits available in 8x10, 5x7, 4x6, and wallet (croppings will differ slightly from proofs shown). Collages, if you want them other than 8x10 I make no guarantees they will look the same or in the case of teh one collage with pictures from the whole shoot that I can even get it to go into a 5x7 or smaller. If I am unable to properly resize I will keep the size ratio the same and add black fill to take the leftover space around the inset 8x10 sized collage, I can show you on some 4x6's I have.

That's it, hope it was worth the wait.



p.s. again excuse any typos, here I am at 1 am publishing again! what is it with me and the 1-2 am publishing? oh yeah, sleeping children.

Little Man

This was my first shoot with Magnus, it was also his first time at Inniswood Metro Gardens. He wasn't sure what to make of me or the gardens. Luckily he had monkey to hang on to and help keep the weird lady at a distance. Good thing for him, I like tough guys.



Yeah I know you weren't crazy about the part where I decided maybe I should carry you to the next spot, but seriously Magnus, I promise there is much cooler stuff to come. You have to trust me. . .just a little bit, I come highly recommended from your mama's friend, and she's known me since 8th grade, a little trust Magnus, just a little.



See buddy, now that's what we're talking about! I think Magnus would have happily ran back and forth through here for half the photo shoot, but one can only take so many pictures of the half leafed out willow tunnel. Man did we make him mad trying to get him out of there, but he discovered the "secret garden" is pretty sweet too.






You'd think I put him infront of a fake brick backdrop! All I had to do was get in position and then queue the random strangers to walk by. He tracked, he followed, he waved, he laughed. . . he tried to follow them out.






Mom's got a frame to fill and is debating maybe a 4 pic frame instead, so there will be a couple of these 4x6 matting recommendations in this proof set.









Still in the "secert garden" I managed to get a few more out of him. I play a mean game of "ribbit" and hide and go seek. I dunno, the one at right had a bit of a blu pallete and I just sort of ran with it. I don't start off knowing what I'll do with pictures I just, well, let them speak to me. I'm very impressionable.



I am one funny frog lady. Do you know how hard it is to ribbit and hop like a frog and then get crouched back down and get the camer in focus before an 18 month old stops laughing. It's harder than you think, this is one of the many reasons I often wear yoga pants to shoot in.



It was time for a juice break, it was HOT today and we were shooting midday to work things in around naps and family time. So we went to one of my other favorite spots. Magnus wanted nothing to do with the rope bridge, but he did sit adorably on the tree house steps, and give his monkey some encouragment too.



The second picture is processed with a retro honey, it's Magnus, kicking it back 70's style. I promise we only had juice to drink.



I already knew I had gotten some decent pictures, not a ton to choose from but definitely something, so we started winding our way back to the car and stopped at my favorite family photo bridge. Well it's wide enough for a picnic, for Magnus that is. At right: "Hey! Give me that fruitabu!"



These were all shot around him demolishing several snacks, lucky for mom and I he felt like eating tidly today.



Okay everyone wants to catch the great smiles, but I love these ones almost more. Left says (especially that eyebrow), "I don't know about you lady, I think you've been out in the sun too long." and the one at right says, "Whoa there! Camera lady has lost it mommy, let's run!"






He was such a trooper and patiently sat on the bridge by momma as I snapped and snapped hoping to catch a smile or two. Almost caught him, you can tell he stopped that smile on purpose, little stinker.



For framed sets of the more ornery variety.






Just making our way to the car, the long way, come on you never know what you might find on the scenic route! Like nifty stone paths.



He's not tired, no siree!



Absolutely not tired.



Thanks Magnus, you did awesome buddy!
Portraits available 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, storyboards are 8x10. Framed sets are sized for 4x6's, I can walk you through that after you decide what you like and what you want to fill your frame with.

eta: again with the after midnight, please excuse the rambling and typing