Baby Sarah Catherine

Little Miss. That's what I think about when I see Miss Sarah Catherine. She is 14 precious sassy months old and has, since this shoot last week, already moved to Texas! Her mom has started a new job down there and she is now ready to tear up Texas! We barely got this shoot in after having to reschdule earlier in the month.

Sarah Catherine kept me on my toes -- as do all toddlers this age. I always tell my parents to not expect many seated calm photos -- as these little tykes must explore and be on their new feet. She kept my word on that until snack time when I was able to get some tighter shots of her beautiful face. Sarah Catherine has been walking a few months now but showed no signs of slowing down for most of our hour session! When I chatted with her mom before our shoot to get an idea of her personality and demeanor, she said "she's super independent"! No question there. I had so much fun watching her go and just take in the spring air and her environment.

More in-studio baby portraits!

Jessica is a first time mom and brought her sweet baby boy in for his first photo session last week. Declan is 6 weeks old and I almost said no to Jessica b/c I have found that this age is hard to photograph. Not only are they still in that phase of a lot of involuntary movements with their arms (which get in the way of the photos) but they can get fussy pretty quickly too...esp when asked to model and pose a lot! I certainly don't mind being around this sweet, chubby phase but my goal is to get as many great shots of this newborn phase as possible for the parents and I have found that I have had to do re-shoots b/c of the quirkiness of their rapidly growing bodies. Consequently, my new 'rules' for baby shoots include the fresh-out-of-the-oven babies (less than 3 weeks old) when all they do is sleep, and then not again until they are about 3 months old, or holding their heads up while on their tummies.

I have learned a lot from my friend and colleague Liz Vance, who is a fabulous maternity and baby photographer as well as a colleague with NILMDTS. It's how I met her and I am thrilled about that connection. She has encouraged me to 'go for it' with in-studio shoots with maternity and newborns. It's been a fun learning curve and I am grateful to her for pushing me into an area where I have been very skeptical of my own skills (i.e. artifical light!) and just out of my comfort zone.

My little photography community of friends has been such a blessing. It can be a lonely job working solo, no office mates to chat and laugh with, hunkering down in the office/studio by oneself in the quiet of the night....but meeting up on occasion and talking 'shop' via email or chat is good enough to keep me going and it's certainly good enough for me to say "I will never work in the corporate world for 'the man' ever again"! I love having my own business and not having to report to anyone but myself (or my kids).


So check out Declan and his mom!

Baby Addison

A few weekends ago I posted some images from Kim and Dan's maternity session at their home. Well I'm happy to present Baby Addison here today! She was born about 2 1/2 weeks ago and they brought her in for her debut photo session!

She was as I had hoped -- sleeping most of the session. The only time she opened her eyes was when we stripped her down to her naked skin! Then we got a few wails of protest. So most of these images are with her dressed and more comfortable. Even with my heat turned up to 75 and a space heater, it's hard to get these little ones to tolerate winter air! Nevertheless, she is divine clothed or unclothed. Her face is precious. Look at her lips. I am so happy for Kim and Dan -- they both were incredibly relaxed and it transferred to Addison since she was so content and sleepy the entire shoot! Again, I love this -- one of my bridal couples moving on to family photos! I'm so honored to be documenting these important milestones in their lives! What a great job I have.

Growing Christian

Because I'm a perfectionist, I asked Janene to bring Baby Christian back for a 2nd shoot in January. They came in December the first time when Christian was about 6-7 weeks old along with his 2 older sisters...but as I have learned, working with babies who are in-between the newborn and holding-their-head-up phase, they are harder to shoot -- the involuntary 'flailing' movements make it hard. So for this round, I had Janene hold him for many of the photos and he did do well solo as he was stronger and even smiling this time.

My first newborn shoot

It's fitting I did this shoot on the day before I fly to Atlanta to attend a photo seminar called, "Babies & Bellies" on Saturday night, hosted and taught by the co-founder (Sandy Puc) of the charity I work with, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

I asked Jen to bring baby Whitney in as soon as she could after delivering. Whit is about 3 weeks old here and Jen came in for her maternity shoot about a week before her water broke!! Jen was such a trooper as these little ones pee and poop at will! And I'm all about naked baby photos so it's pretty much a guarantee. I have another newborn shoot in 2 weeks with one of my former brides in 2006. I did her maternity shoot at her home 2 weeks ago and still need to post those images. It's really fun doing this and I have a lot to learn so if you know anyone who is about to have a baby and wants newborn photos (within the first 2 weeks of delivering only), I'll be doing this at a 50% discount off my sitting free for a while.

Baby Leah -- Session #2 of three

I have been slack! I have stuff to post but it's funny how the more work I have the more work I do, the faster I do it and the more I blog. And the same (or would it be opposite?) is true with the less work I have! I am enjoying more time to read novels, getting in bed earlier, watching TV (which I don't normally do) such as American Idol auditions and just not having pressure to turn my edits around as fast after my fall. But I know this is only for the months of January and February as once march rolls around, I have 2 weddings that month and portrait inquiries are already starting for spring in addition to other weddings. So it's fleeting!

Baby Leah is now about 7 1/2 months old and was crawling by the time she came in for her 2nd portrait session of her 3 -- as part of my "Bebe Collection" (3 portraits sittings at various intervals/milestones in the first year for $400). Leah's mom, my friend Amy, is planning on putting together a little 5x5 book of selected photos from each session after the 1 year portraits. In any event, I told Amy that she needed to bring Leah in AFTER she started sitting up but BEFORE she started crawling! We all know that window of time is short, but KEY for indoor portrait photographers!!! Naturally, it was hard to schedule that session b/c of the holidays and Leah was indeed crawling when she came in! She was all about crawling left, right or towards us and all we could do was laugh b/c we were sweating, picking her up and putting her back, coaxing her to stay still, everything possible! And I'm happy to report that despite that, we succeeded after reviewing the images! I did shoot a lot and have a bunch of fun photos so there is plenty for Amy to pick from. I am posting a lot here -- maybe making up for the time that has elapsed since my last posting! Or because Leah is a peach!

Post a comment here and let me know what you think!

Not looking 9 months prego!

About 2 weeks ago I did a maternity session with Jen. She is a colleague of Jack's from his former CNN days and currently at XM Radio. While I don't do maternity sessions frequently, I have done enough to know I love doing it and want to do more! So here's to the future of big bellies! Jen's water broke about a week after our shoot -- talk about great timing, but Lord if she doesn't look 9 months prego here! And for those of you who are looking at her and saying "must be her first" -- well, it's not. This is her 2nd pregnancy. She just had her 2nd girl last weekend. Congrats Jen!

I had so much fun with this shoot b/c Jen was uninhibited and was self-confident enough with her figure to bare her skin! These postings are G (okay, PG) rated but I promise you the others not posted are gorgeous too! Her skin was luminous and smooth -- tho she may disagree, but there was very little editing here. No stretch marks and just a beautiful pregnant body.

This weekend I'll be doing another maternity session. The gal who has hired me was one of my 2006 brides so it's fun to move from weddings to portraits with my clients. She is less interested in showing skin so we'll be doing more of a lifestyle session -- at her home, photos in the nursery, with her husband and the like. Stay tuned for those images.