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.

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.

The Corrado Kids

The holidays put me behind schedule as the Corrado Family came to me for their shoot in early December! Normally I would have posted this sooner but they knew I was under the gun to get holiday orders out and they were not in need of products before so I have been able to take more time with editing their shoot. Moreover, Alexandria Hospital has now called me twice in the past week for my NILMDTS shoots in addition to Arlington the week of Christmas. I try to crank out those photos for the families given their unspeakable circumstances. And with that, it puts my other work on the back burner for a bit.

In any event, Christian was 4 weeks old for this shoot. Welcome to the world Christian!! He has 2 big sisters who were doting on him the entire time. Additionally, they were quite the posers for me on their own. No attitudes here. I enjoyed them immensely and enjoyed my time getting to know them!