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.

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.

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!

Amy Seeley

I just wanted to publicly thank Amy Seeley, a wonderful and talented singer and songwriter from Portland, Oregon. If you visit my Web site you will notice that I have added some backdrop music. The song you hear is titled, “Call if a Life” and is written and performed by Amy and was originally published on an album back in 2005. There are so many of Amy’s songs that I adore but for some reason this one just kept jumping out at me. It’s probably because it always seems to be playing when I’m editing my images. I noticed that my images seemed to take on a new layer of emotion when viewed with this music in the background.

Amy, thank you for so humbly sharing your amazing talent and for allowing me the opportunity to bless all the visitors to my Web site with your music. It will surely set the perfect tone for enjoying my images.

And for everyone else, please check out Amy Seeley Online or visit Amy Seeley on MySpace to learn more about her and enjoy more of her songs. And, if you happen to be in the Northwest, you can see Amy perform live at Insomnia Coffee in Hillsboro, Oregon on February 27th. If you go, be sure to say “Hi” to Amy and let her know that you were there at my invitation. Also, be sure to look for me and say “Hello” as well. I’d love to see you there.

Also, be sure to visit my blog again during the next week. I’m going to have a promotion to give away Amy’s newest CD titled, Eight Belles.

And for those of you that are unable to attend Amy’s next show, here is a YouTube broadcast of her performing her song, “Gravel Lines”. Although the video isn’t the best quality, Amy’s performance is magical as usual. Enjoy!

I’m Still Alive!

Despite the fact that I haven’t gotten back on my regular blog posting schedule I’m still around. I have a lot to catch up on from a blogging perspective but I’ve been focused on going through my year end financials (sounds fun doesn’t it) so that I can complete my tax paperwork. That way I’ll be able to pass along the sales taxes that I collected last year on behalf of the Department of Revenue. The glass is half full perspective on this is that it has served to reinforce those areas of the business that I enjoy the most. Let’s just say I prefer working with clients and doing photo sessions much more than this aspect of running a business.

I miss you all though and plan to get back on my blogging horse by next week.

And, I just got the good news today from my client Katie that she and her husband are now the proud parents of a little girl. I had the privilege of doing a
maternity photography session for them back in November. I can’t wait until I get to meet their little girl and I’m excited to share her pictures with you all. Congratulations to Katie and Jason! And stay tuned for photos of their little girl.

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.

Christmas 2008

Although a little late, I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I am still trying to get caught up after what turned out to be a very busy December. It’s obvious that my regular blog posting schedule has been significantly impacted. In fact, this is the longest that I have gone without posting; a whole week. I’ve learned that balancing family and my business around the holidays is challenging at best. I’m extending some grace to myself and expect that come January 1st, I will be back to my regular schedule.

In the meantime, I thought I would share a few images from the past week. These were all taken with my point-and-shoot. This first image is one of the pictures from our family Christmas card this year and was captured on the first day of snow that we had on Sunday December 14th. Let’s just say that our kids have enjoyed many more days of sledding since then.

These next few images were captured at my sister’s house on Christmas eve. Santa and one of his elves made an appearance to deliver presents to all the good girls and boys that were there. The first shot is of my two oldest kids and one of their cousins looking out of the upstairs window for Santa and his sleigh.

The next two show how patient my kids can be when they are expecting (and hoping) that one of the presents might have their names on them.

That last picture shows my son continuing to exhibit something he struggles with greatly; patience. Just a quick anecdote regarding my son and receiving presents. On the way home that evening he asked us, “Mom and Dad, if Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Birthday, why do we get presents”. I know how my husband and I responded but I’m curious to know how you would have answered this question from a 6 year old.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and enjoy the rest of 2008. We’ll get back on the regular blogging schedule in January.

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?

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.

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.