New Blog Coming Soon – Seattle Child and Family Photographer

I’m sure that you all are tired of hearing me complain about my current blog theme not allowing me to post larger images. I’ve been complaining for a while now actually. Well, I’m finally going to do something about it. Stay tuned as I hope to launch my new blog in the next few days.

And, just because it doesn’t feel right to do a post without a little eye candy, here are a few portraits that I found from a session I did just after this last Thanksgiving. Enjoy!

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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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Baby Ella – Seattle Child and Family Photographer

My neighbor and good friends from across the street recently welcomed a precious little baby girl in to their family. As a gift to them, I had offered a newborn portrait session along with a baby announcement that they could send to their friends and family to announce the good news. Well, apparently, little Baby Ella was just as excited to meet all of us as we were to meet her because she decided to arrive two weeks earlier than her due date. After getting the kids off to school on Friday, I want across the street and spent some time hanging out with them and capturing some photos. The only thing that was missing was Ella’s big brother who was off at school but hopefully, I’ll have another chance to get both of them together soon for some portraits.

In the meantime, please help me in welcoming Baby Ella, congratulating her proud parents and big brother, and enjoy just a few of the wonderful images I was able to capture during the hour I spent with them.

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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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Newborn Portrait Photography

You may remember the maternity photography that I did for Katie and Jason last October. Well, they proudly introduced their little girl to the world just a couple of weeks ago so I spent some time with them this past weekend capturing some newborn photos. Baby Alivia is just darling and it was so fun to see how Katie and Jason have settled in to life as new parents. As beautiful as Katie was as an expectant mother, it can’t compare to how beautiful she is when she is cuddling her newborn daughter in her arms. As excited and as proud as Jason may have been when I photographed him with his pregnant wife, it doesn’t compare to how proud he looked sitting next to his wife and kissing his precious little girl on her head.

Congratulations to you both. I am very happy for you and appreciate you inviting me in to your home to take photos of Alivia.

Please enjoy this sneak peek into their newborn session. And I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment to congratulate Katie and Jason.

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Home for the holidays – My final portrait session of 2008

I had the privilege of spending time with one of the loveliest families I know for my last photo session of 2008. Although only two of these sisters are still at home the other three made the effort (and given the weather we’ve been having, yes it was an effort) to make it home so that the family could enjoy celebrating Christmas together. My family and I were fortunate enough to spend an evening at their home the week prior to this session enjoying food, fellowship and singing our favorite Christmas carols. I was so excited to have the opportunity to take pictures of them while they were home because their personalities, especially when they are all together is just priceless.

Tanya, Melissa, Annalise, Jessica, and Jeneale were all primed for an evening of salsa dancing but not until we spent some time capturing some nice images that will hopefully yield a portrait for their dad’s desk at work. With as beautiful as they all are, it will be no one’s fault but my own if we don’t end up with an image that is proudly displayed for all of dad’s co-workers to admire.

You’ll notice that Tanya’s fiance Anthony was even brave enough to enter the fray. With the responsibility of escorting so many lovely ladies, I’m sure that his dancing shoes were well worn by the end of the night.

Trust me when I say that the following is just a small sampling of what turned out to be a great group of images. Thanks for being yourselves and letting me hang out with you at home prior to your big night on the town.

P.S. Let me just say that the small images on the blog do not do the images justice. One more reason why I am investing in a new blog for 2009 so that I can accommodate larger images for all to enjoy.

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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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A Thanksgiving Family Reunion

My friend Cara had her family come to visit for the Thanksgiving holiday. Given that it was a relatively rare event to have everyone together in one place, they asked me to come over and capture some good times the day after they celebrated their Thanksgiving together. It’s a fun family and I really enjoyed spending time with them and watching them interact with each other. My family and I were even privileged enough to join in their Thanksgiving feast the night before. We really enjoyed the opportunity to meet them all.

Although I haven’t had much time to go through and proof all of the images, I wanted to post a few for the family to see while they were all still together. There’s nothing like gathering around the warm glow of a computer monitor and enjoying your family portraits.

I hope you all enjoy these images. I also hope you don’t mind that I decided to go with all black and whites for the blog post. I just watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” so I was in a black and white mood when I posted these. Enjoy and have a safe trip home.

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Family Portraits at the Christmas Tree Farm

This is the time of year that everyone starts trying to figure out what picture they want to use for their Christmas cards that will be sent to friends and family. Julie and Geoff are no exception. They were planning on heading out to look for a Christmas tree to cut down with their two boys and asked me to tag along in hopes of capturing some fun images that might provide some good Christmas card material. So, on Saturday afternoon I met them at the Trees and Bees Christmas Tree Farm south of Seattle for a mini-session.

We were actually able to capture quite a few images in our half hour together. You can check out a few of them below.

If you are still looking for that perfect picture to use for this year’s Christmas card, I am going to be back at the tree farm next Saturday, December 6th and still have some session times available between 1:00-4:00pm. If you are interested, please contact me to schedule your time slot.

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