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 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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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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Hanging Out With a Two Year Old

More often than not, when I catch my kids doing something where I think, “aw, how cute” and want to capture it in an image, the moment is gone by the time I get back with my camera. And that’s fine because I’ll just hang out with my camera and wait for the next moment. And with three kids, those moments seem to happen pretty often. Well, yesterday I captured the following two moments while hanging out with my two year old while the other kids were at school.

In this first one, she had dumped all of the wooden blocks out of this basket and climbed inside with her baby. The other thing that you can’t tell from this image is that she had dressed herself and put her dress on backward. If you look closely you might be able to see the zipper in front.

She’s also very in to her identity right now. This is her climbing up on the sofa to point at the canvas on the wall the whole time saying, “that’s me”.

This is what I love about photography. There are so many moments that occur during the course of a day but most of the time they happen so fast and so often that we tend to take them for granted. The ability to use my camera to capture a specific moment in time that can be reflected on later and enjoyed is something that I am very passionate about. That is why I feel so blessed when my clients hire me to capture the authentic and original moments in their lives that, when looked back upon, remind them of everything that they were thinking, feeling and experiencing at that particular moment in time. A moment they will never experience again but can remember and enjoy through their photographs. Whether they be displayed on a wall or in the pages of an album.

If you would like me to capture these types of moments for you, please contact me.

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Family Portrait Session in Auburn

One of the ways I prepared for my first triathlon this past summer was to do spin classes at the YMCA. And that’s when I met Val. She is an amazing athlete, a fantastic spin instructor, and a great encourager. In addition to all those things, she’s also a health care professional and loving wife and mother to two children. To top it all off, she also used to run her own photography business for eleven years. Although I’ve never seen it, I’m sure she owns a cape with a large “S” on it as well.

After learning that I had my own photography business, Val contacted me to take some photos of her family. As I am starting to find out, when you spend all your time photographing other people, you tend to neglect getting your own family photos done. I was happy to oblige and help Val and family get some recent photos.

It was a pleasure to meet Val, her husband Mike and their two children. As you will see below, they are a great looking family and it was a lot of fun to spend some time with them at the park. Their dog, Cooper, even tagged along.

Val, thanks again for asking me to take your portraits. I had a blast and your family is great. I hope you like the shots we were able to capture. I’m sure if you don’t, I’ll find out the hard way during spin class;-)

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Family Photo Session in West Seattle

Considering that I don’t do any advertising, the majority of my clients have been through referrals and word of mouth. Lately I have also been booking more and more people that have just stumbled upon my Web site or my blog. Thank goodness for Google.

Pauline is one of those people that found me online while she was searching for local photographers. She and her husband Kevin were preparing to celebrate their son’s first birthday and wanted to get some portraits done to capture some images that will forever preserve everything that is special about this particular time in their lives. We met on Saturday morning at Lincoln Park in West Seattle and enjoyed the nice (but cool) October morning. Although it wasn’t too much of a journey for them to get to the park, here’s how their son arrived.

Hey, waking up at 5:30 in the morning is enough to encourage anyone to take a nap by 10:00 am. After letting him sleep for a little bit, it wasn’t long before he was alert and excited to take some nice family photos while enjoying himself at a familiar location. After looking through some of these images, I still can’t stop admiring his beautiful eyes. Isn’t he handsome?

And, even though he just turned one last week, this little guy is doing a great job walking. Luckily, we were able to get him to sit still long enough when he was just waking up to get this nice family shots.

The safest place on earth for this little guy; in mom and dad’s arms.

Yes, apparently the strange lady with the camera was more interesting than the ferry boat in the distance. Hey, if it let’s me get sweet shots like this, I don’t mind.

Yes, we do still get sun during October. I added a little texture to this image for a little visual interest.

All I did to this one was add a little vignetting around the image to draw focus to this sweet moment between mom and son.

A sweet profile of a sweet boy.

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for sepia.

Dad and son enjoying some smiles and giggles together.

You gotta love the over the shoulder shot. Nothing like being in mom’s arms.

Pauline and Kevin, I’m so glad that you found me online and I appreciate you trusting me with this special opportunity to capture your family during such a special time in your lives. I really enjoyed our time together and am excited for you to see all of the wonderful images we captured. Let me know how you like this little sample.

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The Best Holiday Portrait Location – Random Drawing Winner

The second part to the contest to come up with the best holiday portrait location was a random drawing from all of the people that submitted votes. And the winner is Kendra! In addition to Niesha who came up with the winning location (Pumpkin Patch), Kendra will also win a complimentary mini-session that includes a 30-minute portrait session at a pumpkin patch, an online gallery of images available for two weeks, an 8×10 print of her choice and an electronic image of her choice that she can use for her holiday photo cards.

Congratulations Kendra!

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More Family Portraits From Lincoln Park in West Seattle

Yesterday I shared some of the images of the kids that we captured during this last weekend’s session at Lincoln Park. As promised, I have posted a few of the family shots. Like I said yesterday, I think there will plenty of nice options for decorating the walls, gifts for family members or including on a Christmas card.

As always, I love to hear from you so leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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Family Portrait Session at Lincoln Park – Sneak Peek

This past weekend I spent some time at Lincoln Park with two fun families – Lalisha and her husband Jeff and Jeff’s sister Jody and her husband Jason. And what made it even more fun was that between the two couples, there were four beautiful children. And, as if that wasn’t enough, we had a beautiful 80 degree day to work with.

Lalisha found me online a couple of months ago and wanted to get the family together for some portraits that they could use to decorate their home as well as give as gifts to other family members. As I’m going through the images I captured during our time together, I think they are going to have some really great shots to choose from.

Although I’m not yet done with reviewing their images, I wanted to at least put a few previews out there so that they don’t have to keep waiting in suspense. I’ll start off with a few of the kids and will plan to share some of the beautiful family shots tomorrow.

Lalisha, Jeff, Jody and Jason – I hope you enjoy these portraits of your beautiful children. The only thing I wish was different is that my blog template allowed larger landscape images because it really doesn’t do them justice to shrink them down to this size.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think and check back tomorrow for a few more previews from our time together.

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Vote for the best holiday family portrait location in and around Seattle

Ok, last week I asked you to submit your ideas for the best location for holiday family portraits in and around the greater Seattle Tacoma area. Thanks to Steph, Niesha, Amber and Diane for your ideas.

Now, it’s your turn to vote on which of the ideas you think would provide the best setting for holiday portraits. The person that submitted the idea that gets the most votes will win a complimentary holiday mini-session which includes a 30 minute portrait session at the winning location, an online proofing gallery available for two weeks following the session, an 8×10 print, and one digital image that may be used to make your holiday photo cards.

And, there’s something else. I will also select a random winner from all the people that vote and they will also receive a complimentary holiday mini-session as described above. But here’s the deal. The only way I will know you voted is if you also leave a comment. Unfortunately, the software I’m using to run the poll does not collect any information regarding who is voting. So, be sure to leave a comment to let me know that you voted so that I can include your name in the random drawing for a winner.

So what are you waiting for. Let the voting begin!

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