Nominate Someone to Receive a Complimentary Portrait Session – Seattle Child and Family Photographer

I can’t believe it but the Jenny Joy Photography Blog is going to turn one year old on Saturday, February 21st. To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to give away a complimentary portrait session. So, here’s the deal, send in your nominations for either yourself or on behalf of someone else that is celebrating a first. You should submit your nominations via email to jenny@jennyjoyphotography.com with the subject line reading, “Blog Contest”. Please include the name (first name only is fine) of the person you are nominating, what their “first” is, and why you want them to experience a custom portrait photography session.

Here are some ideas of a few different “firsts” to get you started but I encourage you to be creative and come up with your own as well.

1. Child’s first birthday
2. Pregnant with first child
3. Adopting first child
4. First wedding anniversary
5. First time entering a blog contest
6. Insert your creative “first” idea here!

You should feel free to nominate as many different people for as many different “firsts” that you can come up with. I will collect nominations starting today through the end of day on February 28th. The winner will be announced on my blog on March 1st. Good luck!

Oh yeah, here’s the fine print:
The prize is a complimentary portrait session. This includes the time and talent of the photographer only and does not include any photographic prints or products. Photographic prints and products may be purchased per Jenny Joy Photography’s 2009 price list. Portrait session must be completed by June 1, 2009. Portrait session accommodates up to five (5) people. Additional people may be added at a cost of $50 per person. The portrait session may be used to accommodate engagement, maternity, newborn, child, high school senior, or family portrait sessions. This session may not be applied to wedding commissions. Portrait session must be within the King, Snohomish, Pierce or Thurston county areas. Sessions that are scheduled for locations beyond these areas may incur an additional travel surcharge to be negotiated and approved at the time the session is scheduled.

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Family Portrait Session at Gas Works Park – Seattle Portrait Photography

Today I met up with Steve and his children to have some fun at Gas Works Park. Steve is my husband’s cousin and we’ve been trying to get together for a while now so that I could get some pics of him and his kids. Despite the fact that it was cold and foggy (hey, at least it wasn’t rainy), we still managed to enjoy the park and get some nice photos while we were at it. The three of them were good sports and I’m glad that we were finally able to get together to make this happen. I think we got some great shots and my only regret continues to be the fact that the constraints of my blog don’t allow me to post bigger photos so that they can be enjoyed in all their glory.

You’ll notice that I didn’t get too crazy or creative on the post-processing of these files (even though my blog is where I typically like to experiment with different treatments). However, there is one image that I decided to make black and white. Also, considering that the background on that image is blown out, I added some texture to it as well. Although it might not be for everyone, I actually like how it turned out. I think the texture adds some depth to the image and it ended up being a nice moment between father and son. What do you think?

Oh yeah, I also snuck one in at the end with all the cousins.

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Session Albums – Seattle Portrait Photography

Back in November I established a partnership with a custom album supplier that creates amazingly stylish and high quality products. One of the products that I now offer is a complete session album that includes the final selections from each portrait session (this usually ends up being the 30 best images from the day). With around 30 different unique cover materials to choose from, hot contemporary colors and beautiful styling, it will be hard to not pull this album out and start bragging about your beautiful portraits every chance you get.

Each of my clients that has ordered one of these albums love looking through the swatches of all of the cover material options and loves how this 5×5 album fits in their purse so they can keep it with them wherever they go. These also make great gifts. I recently had a client order one for herself and one for each of the grandmothers. They love them.

Right now, these albums are offered a la carte but I am considering offering them standard with each session. The first few studio samples I had put together were snatched up so I was putting together a few more sample albums today. What do you think?

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Birthday Party – Seattle Child Photographer

Somebody turned five last weekend and enjoyed celebrating her birthday with some of her friends. These are just a few pictures that Chris captured while I was herding a bunch of kids around our house. She’s really growing up entirely too fast.

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Canon 40d – Seattle Arboretum – Seattle Child Portrait Photography

So, it’s been a while since I’ve dusted off the old Canon 40d. Ever since I got the Canon 5D last March, the Canon 40d has really just served as my “just in case” camera and has also come in handy when Chris has worked with me as a second shooter as he did during the Greek Orthodox baptism as well as David and Kirsten’s wedding at the Lake Quinault Resort.

Well, I picked it up yesterday and found that I had an old CF card sitting in there and was curious to see what was on it. Of course there were no client images but I did find a few images that Chris had captured of the kids hanging out at the Seattle Arboretum while I was in a client meeting nearby. Since I was cleaning the card off anyway, I thought I would at least share a few.

No Photoshop processing on these although I did apply a couple of different B&W presets in Lightroom just to accentuate them a bit. And oh yeah, I’m still planning to implement a new blog this year. I NEED to be able to display bigger images. The limitation of 500 pixels wide is just not doing my images justice.

Enjoy!

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Happy Snow Days!

The good news about the snow, ice and cold temperatures here in Washington state is that it’s a good excuse to stay home and continue getting caught up on all of the orders (and blog posts) I’m trying to get processed. In the meantime, enjoy a nice snowy image that I captured after church on Sunday. This was taken right after making a snow angel. What do you think? Could this be a good advertising image for North Face?

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Family Portrait Session in Seattle

The past Saturday I had the chance to meet a really great family and do a portrait session for them at their home in Seattle and at the arboretum. Erin found me online while searching for Seattle area photographers and I’m so glad she did. She and her husband Geoffrey are a delight and I really had a lot of fun spending time with them and their two daughters (3 years and almost 4 months of age). The thing I loved the most was that their fun and loving personalities really came through during their session which made it very enjoyable for me to just hang out and capture images of them spending time together. Their faithful golden retriever of many years even tagged along.

I loved that Erin and Geoffrey were not at all intimidated by the camera. The only problem is they were enjoying their time together so much, creating so many opportunities for wonderful images, I got trigger happy and now have the difficult task of reviewing all of the images and filtering it down to just the best of the best. While I continue that process, I have grabbed a few that jumped out as potential favorites to share with you here.

Erin and Geoffrey – thanks again for the opportunity to spend time with you and your family on Saturday. You are all wonderful and reminded me why I love what I do. By the end of the session, I forgot that I was your photographer and instead felt like an old friend. I’m anxious to share all of your proofs with you and can’t wait to see what you think.

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Baby Portrait Session in Federal Way

On Saturday I hung out with Amy and her sister Shelby for a couple of hours. They both are the proud mothers of 3-month old babies. Amy has a precious little girl and Shelby has a handsome little boy. I had a lot of fun watching these sweet little cousins hang out together and I was able to capture some great images. Start clearing off the walls, ladies. There are a few here that deserve to be framed and displayed for all to enjoy.

Let me know what you think of these. And, oh yeah, did I mention how I want to get a new blog template? These small horizontal images just don’t do them justice.

These cousins are only 10 days apart. Any guesses on which one is older?

I love this one. Nothing like seeing a mom admiring her baby.

Little Baby J. didn’t seem too impressed by my camera.

A tender moment between Amy and her daughter.

Beautiful!

I love images like this where I am able to capture the authentic interactions between a mom and her child. Very hard to recreate in the studio. Very easy to observe and enjoy in the context of real life.

I couldn’t pass this one up. Aren’t these the cutest tights you’ve ever seen. Thank you Hanna Andersson.

Nothing like a son being content to just hang out with mom on a Saturday afternoon.

I love how he was just sitting there with his tiny precious little hands clasped together. Too sweet! Of course, he was probably just praying that the lady with the camera would pack up and leave already!

You had to know those tights would demand an equally cute dress. I love how this perspective catches Amy’s smile as she enjoys her little girl.

I thought they were cute when they were just in their diapers. How cute are these little outfits?

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Pumpkin Patch Photos

This last Friday I had the chance to connect with Niesha, the winner of the holiday portrait location contest. Her idea of a pumpkin patch received the most votes and she won a complimentary mini-session which included a 30-minute portrait session, an online gallery of images available for 2 weeks, an 8×10 print, and one electronic image. I met with her, her boyfriend and his darling little boy out at Maris Farm and we had a blast. Here are just a few images from our time together. Enjoy!

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Little Baby C.

I spent some time with a 3-month old little boy this past week and man does he have some handsome big blue eyes. His mom and big sister were home with him and I had a lot of fun watching the interaction between them all. Although I was originally planning to post the majority of the images in black and white, when I saw how well the color of his eyes came through in the images I thought I had to include a few of the close up portraits to share them with you. Although, given how much he wanted to keep moving his head all over the place, I was worried about getting any in focus. And boy how I forgot how good a balled up fist can taste to a three month old.

So, what do you think of this handsome little guy?

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