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.

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.