“A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty.” ~Author Unknown
For all of you amazing Dads out there, I hope you have a wonderful weekend filled with lots of hugs and sweet moments with your children! Enjoy your day!
Isn’t it just fitting that my first published family portrait session is with one of my absolutely wonderful clients that I have been working with for the last two years!
Today I have been published on The Indie Tot blog featuring an adorable Fall family portrait session in Historic Richmondtown. Everything about the session was just wonderful – the weather, the location, the family, and the giggly smile of their adorable little man.
Check out The B Family on the The Indie Tot here and please don’t forget to show them some love and comment on the post!!
About The Indie Tot: The Indie Tot features the best of the best for kids! We love the people who excel at creating great products for children – whether they’re handmade, eco-friendly or simply of awesome quality.
If you visit and read my web site, you’ll find that I describe family life as “sweetness, love, craziness and chaos all rolled into one.” Well, that statement comes directly from my experience with my own family – my kids, my nieces, cousins, and more. Sometimes you have to embrace the craziness and chaos and just have fun with it.
I love taking Easter Portraits of my kids and my nieces, and I typically hunt for the perfect Easter outfits for my kids. But taking portraits of my own children can be quite entertaining. But I absolutely love the images we made yesterday. The craziness, chaos, sweetness and love are all here. It was completely nutty, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
Enjoy!
PS Special thanks to my cousin, Billy, for his willingness to participate in the chaos.
Outfits:
Shannon – Dress: Gap Kids. Headband: Kids Kuts in Westfield
Jack – Shirt, Pants and Hat: Janie & Jack
Today’s Favorite Friday blog share is about one of my favorite things to do – helping my clients decide how to display their new family photographs in their home. While I love photographing families and capturing wonderful moments and memories for my clients, I also absolutely love when my clients choose to display the images from those sessions in their home.
Did you know that displaying family photographs in your home can help improve a child’s self-confidence by giving them a sense of belonging? Being a mother, that is almost reason enough for me. But I also believe that adding family photographs to your walls adds a natural warmth to your home, and also just makes you smile more from glancing at the sweetness of the moments we captured that day. Who couldn’t use a few extra smiles each day?
But I often find that my clients are not sure how to display these images in their home, and have difficulty deciding what to order on their own. That is why I meet with all of my clients just a few weeks after their session for an ordering consultation, and I bring customized ideas for the best ways to display the images from their sessions on their walls.
Here are just a few examples of the beautiful gallery-wrapped canvas cluster ideas I have prepared for my clients. There are many more options and layouts, and I would love a chance to work with your family to add happiness and warmth to your walls and home.
What happens when you ask two adorable little girls to gather a pile of leaves and throw them in the air? Sometimes, even the subjects in your photograph don’t know what to expect next.
I loved everything about this session with these two beautiful little girls. The older sister has such a gorgeous smile, beautiful eyes, and she just seems to light up in front of the camera. The younger sister is full of spirit, energy, and a complete bundle of fun!
I also loved the colors here – their mom did a fantastic job with these adorable outfits. While the outfits are completely different, the colors pair nicely together and just pop against our late Fall backdrop.
So, these adorable girls gathered their leaves as requested, and stood really close together ready to toss them into the air. The older one threw her pile up in the air immediately after the first image was shot and honestly before I was completely ready.
But the little one waited just a few seconds more and tossed her pile a little lower (therefore partially in her big sister’s face) – catching her sister completely off guard. And then, this little munchkin was so excited with the leaves raining on their heads that she just starting giggling and running circles around her big sister.
The bottom picture captures a moment of sheer happiness and also one of surprise. What I love most about the images though is how much they made their Mom giggle when we sat down to review them together. Even to this day, everytime she sees that second image, she chuckles remembering the moment. We didn’t expect what happened, but it makes us both smile (and laugh) to remember that feeling of happiness.
Last year, while I was attending WPPI in Las Vegas, Animoto was sponsoring the “Animoto Pro Success Story Contest”. All you had to do was swing by the booth and answer a few questions on video about how you use and why you love Animoto, and one person would be chosen to be featured in an Animoto ad. I had been using Animoto to create slideshows for my clients for about one year, and they always did such an outstanding job helping to convey the emotions and story behind every session. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for a Mom to tell me that it brought her to tears (or her parents, her husband, her neighbors, or her friends).
The contest itself sounded very cool, and although I figured a bunch of awesome and amazing photographers would be lining up for this opportunity, I decided to take a chance. Who knows, right? You definitely can’t win if you don’t at least try, and the opportunity sounded so exciting.
A few months later, I received a phone call from Animoto that I had been chosen to be featured in an ad that would run in Rangefinder and Professional Photograph magazines! Are you kidding me? Their ads so far have featured Kevin Kubota, Vicki Taufer, Scott Bourne, Jeff & Allison Rodgers and so many other wonderful people in the photography industry. And now I could count myself among them? Really?
It took time for me to believe it was really true. We spent some time discussing the plan for the shoot and Animoto’s own Justin Camerer (photographer & software developer) agreed to do the session right in Animoto’s offices. The tech geek in me (that spent 11 years doing software design) was really excited to visit Animoto’s offices and get to know their amazing team. In all honesty, if I still worked in Technology, I would want to work with these guys.
One of the things I love about Animoto isn’t just their awesome slideshows, but I love working with vendors that support photographers and provide education for our industry. And everyone I’ve met from Animoto has been incredible. Their slideshows have amazed my clients, and I still get so excited each time I click the button to produce a new slideshow.
I’m so excited to share a few images from the photo shoot and announce that the ad was published in Rangefinder and Professional Photographer magazine this January. I’m so grateful to Animoto for this opportunity and can’t believe my name is listed in the drop-down on their site along with a ton of top photographers that I admire. Thank you!
Special thanks to Justin Camerer for the portraits and Lindsey Jones for hair/make-up. I loved working with both of you!
It’s time to post another session from earlier this Fall. I love clients that keep coming back and giving me a chance to see how much everyone has grown. This is the third year that I had the pleasure of working with this family and capturing adorable moments with them. This year, we chose to meet at Memorial Park in Millburn, NJ, and I was very happy with the different backdrops available at this location.
I love working with families that know how to have a great time together. While the older children were a little more quiet and reserved (and truthfully, just really mature for their age), the little guy definitely showed his true colors and brought out the giggles from everyone else. He just loved playing it up for the camera, too! Can you tell? And everyone had fun when they were asked to play and jump in the leaves!
Enjoy!
It was mid-October and around 80 degrees, and I had a portrait session scheduled with an adorable family of FIVE boys. Yes, five absolutely wonderful little men. I know their Mom was nervous about the session, not just because she wanted adorable pictures, but she had purchased long sleeves and corduroy pants for them to wear for their holiday portraits, and now it was 80 degrees and the perfect weather for shorts. But, her guys proved she had nothing to worry about.
It wasn’t the sun that warmed my heart that day, but it was the sweet smiles and unbelievable cuteness from these little men. The older boys were so polite as they asked questions about my camera equipment, and helped me carry items as we moved from location to location in Historic Richmondtown. And the little guys just completely stole my heart with the twinkle in their eyes. I know everyone that knows this family would agree that their parents are doing an incredible job raising this family.
Here is a sampling of the images we made that warm October day.
I posted on Facebook yesterday that I have 17 sessions that need to be added to the blog all the way from October through now! 17! It was an incredible and amazing season and I just loved all the time I spent with my clients capturing the cuteness. Even the chaos was fun. I really loved every minute of it.
I just received a comment on my Facebook page from a wonderful person that was excited to see all the cuteness. So, here is the perfect start for sharing cuteness! This gorgeous little lady has been a client since she was just a few days old, and now she is almost two. And she gets more adorable each time I see her.
Enjoy!
