Joy and Sweet Blues

Oh Miss Rachel, how I adore thee. Of course I did sort of take a shine to you when you were like 2 seconds old, so it's been a rather long love affair. I had to beat off the little old ladies who wanted to tuck you in their pocket and take your little joyous self home with them. You were styling today in the blues and greens, gorgeous and fun as always.

Pink and Petite

My fabulous little pal Avery. She's 3 now, hard to believe it's been 2 years since her momma first let me "officially" aim a camera at her for my second ever formal portrait session.
Happy Birthday big girl.

Dapper and Handsome

A few from the session with this handsome little man. He is just delectable.

In Charge

Jake was short and in charge at Franklin Park Conservatory! He was beside himself that he was in charge of exploring this whole new place. We could barely get his attention, he was having way too much fun investigating every path. It was just joy to watch him run around, and at right above, lick water from the fountain off his hands. . . "Who me? I'm not licking the water you told me not to lick?"



And yes this little guy was just full of expressions and moods (all of them fun!). He was everywhere (even out in the snow on the roof, see the gallery) and even showed off that he totally knows how to quickly go up and down stairs, he just needed some that were interesting!







And for the next month you can view their whole gallery here:

Sweetest little pirate I know

I finally got to meet my newest niece before Thanksgiving and of course, there had to be a bunch of pictures! All these blue-eyed nieces! Can't wait to see you guys again next year and visit you guys out west eventually when we are mobile again!

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.

Demolishing Since 2006

A special client, my son Joshua Ryan Riederer. A few days before christmas he'll turn three, and already he has quite the story. I was immensely thankful to have captured these moments this year. His immediate relapse and the severe chemotherapy regime of the past few months (and months ahead), made it even more important to me to capture my son, his smirks and silly faces, his joy, without the glaring side effects the cancer and it's treatment is having on his body. There is one photo without the hat and it is remarkable how much "sicker" he looks in that photo.



I love you demolition man, thank you for letting mommy have these pictures, I'll treasure them always.

Kaz

A good friend from back in Philly was out visiting family in western PA and drove just that much further to hang out with us for about a day. I couldn't resist taking some shots of her gorgeous son, now if only my kids hadn't been there too and I could have had a full hour with this guy, so Handsome!

Also I will be back to shoot editing, honestly, the digital darkroom can just zap brain cells if it is all you do. So I took a little break and got my family blog caught up a bit (even up to these photos from mid August), and now I feel refreshed and ready to tackle my outstanding shoots. Again, thank you to everyone for your continued patience, you all are the best! I am so ready to a week ahead of photo shoot editing goodness! First up, newborn bundle of cute, Evan.

Sway with Me

Miss Cailyn, in all her Cailyn goodness. Happy Number 2 kiddo.

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.

More Boy, Less Flowers

Rowan was very excited to go to Franklin Park, he was very excited to be outside. He was not, however, excited about the gorgeous daffodils I took Maycee's pictures in front of a couple of weeks before. I had to "manify" that first one, it was looking a bit too girlie, rust stains always work, and rinsing out some of those foo-foo colors, there we go. And see that there on the right above? That's him looking at the John Deere garden master, not the flowers. He did do a lot of this below, running from the flowers.



I just love this stair shot, I can't explain why, and the processing just made me love it more.



Rowan was all about the stairs, I have about 100 pictures of the back of him slimbing various staircases from this day. This one was the keeper the, it just had that extra pizzazz, especially with the sun infront of him. I love the sunlit fringes of his curly hairs in the second one. Mama has waited a long time for hair on this kid!



You'll see three of these 4x6 frame sets. Mom has a frame in mind and I wanted to mock up the monogram panel and recommend soem groupings that made nice sets. I'm starting to think everyone should have a frame or two in mind like this, I love filling them!



Same courtyard I took Ella and Maycee too, but an 18 month old is running and doesn't want to sit on cool bricks. I had not noticed how cool this railing was, good job Rowan!



I play a pretty wicked game of peek-a-boo. I can be quite entertaining, when I'm not bringing out the "serious" in small babies.



Of course it always helps when Momma is willing to make a fool of herself in public too. That and I was leaning backwards on a set of stairs, children are always amused when I am in mortal peril.



He had a little clapping session for awhile, the one at left was the keeper. Love that smile and look! The elusive hair! I bet mom doesn't even remember me taking the one at right. As we left the courtyard he headed back to the garden truck, and we called him back to us, and as he ran back I took 3 pictures at my hip really fast. This one was just awesome, and a good crop can hide any ole ugly asphalt road.



Note to self: always remember that while the Palm House has really photogenic stairs, it also has a fountain, doh!



Mom took it in great stride. It helps that the sweater didn't show the wetness, but I think it grew 5 inches as he tromped around the rest of the Conservatory.






It's hard to get really cool shots here at the koi pond, there's not much space to the wall, and you can't go across from the pond. Oh and 18 month olds don't stay very still. With older kids you could get some real gems, especially if you had a small step ladder.



I processed this in a different manner on different days and they all ended up with the same look to them, I guess the lighting and the Chihuly just spoke to me.



Gettign him to pause infront of this Chihuly display was nearly impossible, but I got one! And again another coming down the stairs picture, except this one is a bit more whimisical/funny then artsy. Those chubba cheeks!



I just love this photo, the end. I was again in some ridiculous pose on the landing below him and he just looked down at me thinking, "WHAT on earth are you doin' lady?!??"



These both can be summed up as "I'm not not throwing gravel at you camera lady!"



The second one is for daddy, yup, baby boy likes to hang out down a the precinct, keep the bad guys in jail. And yup mom, got one with the train going by! What am I going to do when they take my train away?



On the other side of the train display. The lighting's a bit funky over here, I couldn't get them processed just the way I wanted, he has such fair skin it's easy to overdo it.



"Choo-CHOOO!"



Yup that momma is one silly lady! I am lucky to have friends willing to degrade themselves for baby smiles! The one at left is my favorite, even if he leaned back and his face is slightly out of focus. Little bugger was jumping and laughing and the light was really low, he made me work for it.



I don't know where I was going or where I came from with this last storyboard, it just um, well I don't rightly know. There's something to build on there, just have to figure out the proportions to get it tack on.

edited to add: it's 12:30 am, please excuse any typos, I'm sure there are a lot.