Tag: mom

The best weekend for Family Photos with Fall Color

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First of all, I want to say that any time of year is perfect for a family portrait session. The important thing is to get them done, and to do it regularly, preferably at least once a year as our littles ones grow so fast and are constantly changing.  Beautiful memories can be captured any time of year. I’m now booking January photo sessions, and those can be absolutely beautiful (you just need to dress warmly!)

With that being said, lots of my clients really want that gorgeous fall color, and ask me when they should schedule family portrait sessions to get that color.  I always hesitate to answer because mother nature is unpredictable and I cannot promise you we will get beautiful fall color at all.  Sometimes, an early freeze or drought conditions or other things can put a damper on that beautiful autumn color.  

But I can tell you, after some experience and actual forecasts, when to schedule your session to get the best chance of gorgeous color, and that is the first weekend of November (the last weekend in October is a good second choice).  That’s when our fall colors peak here in Middle Tennessee.  I find a lot of clients who assume it happens a lot earlier than that, and that’s probably because it does up north. Our friends in Michigan saw their autumn peak several weeks ago (and now they are getting snow!). 

This beautiful family portrait session from this weekend is a bit past the peak.  The sessions I did the weekend before had a lot more color, but I can’t share those with you at the clients request (some are surprise Christmas gifts, and we don’t want to ruin the surprise!) But I’m so glad that this family had such a beautiful day! We had actually rescheduled this session from earlier in October because of rain.  Are they not absolutely stunning!  I’ve known this gorgeous family for years, but this is the first time I’ve been able to photograph them.  They were so much fun to capture and I hope they love the photos as much as I do. 

The autumn leaves are going to be gone very soon, so get out and enjoy this absolutely gorgeous color while it lasts!  

No, we aren’t doing photos with Satan…and other reasons I need a copy editor.

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So apparently I invited the “I heart Spring Hill page” to come have photos made with Satan at Spring Station Middle School. 👹

So two things:

We will be doing photos with SANTA 🎅🏻, not Satan 👹.  Satan isn’t very festive. 🎄  (Click the link at the bottom of this blog post to get your tickets now..don’t wait as they are selling out fast.) 

Also, I should not be allowed to type things.  Pictures really are my specialty.  And if pictures are worth a thousand words, then I have millions and billions so I should just quit typing.

It’s not that I can’t spell, it’s that I type quickly as things are coming into my head, and then, even if I re-read it multiple times, I SEE it like it’s correct.  Have you ever seen those tricks of the mind things where they delete all the vowels from a paragraph, but somehow you can read it anyway because your mind subconsciously fills in the blanks?  That’s what I do when I try to edit my own work…I don’t even see the error. I mean, you guys, OF COURSE I meant Santa.  

I’d like to say that was the first time I royally goofed in type, but sadly, it’s not. 

So I actually have a copy editor.  She’s really good at it and bonus…she’s free.  Unfortunately, she’s also 12 and at school all day.  I could wait, and I know I should, but I get so excited to show these beautiful families their photos, and I know that they are usually on pins and needles waiting to see them, that I just can’t make myself wait.

So instead, I ask for your grace and hope that you’ll love me for my photos and not judge me for my typos. And a big shout out to all my amazing people who are kind enough to point it out to me when I invite an entire town to photos with Satan, or who help point out less interesting errors. 

With that, check out these photos from a session that I so look forward to each year.  Lucky Ladd Farms is one of my favorite places and the Ladd’s are one of my favorite families to photograph. (Check out their website to see lots of pictures of my baby girl, who has been in love with their farm since she was teeny tiny.) 

What exactly is Lifestyle Photography?

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This beautiful family was able to take a last minute opening that I had available, and I am so glad they did.  We had so much fun running and playing in the leaves. 

I thought I might take the opportunity to talk about exactly what it means to shoot lifestyle photography, which is what I consider most of my sessions. To understand lifestyle photography, it helps to understand a few other types of photography.

One type of photography is classic posed portraiture.  These are what you think of when you think of a photographer telling you exactly where to stand, how to hold your chin, elbow, etc.  While I believe there is a time and a place for specific posing, this is not the type of photography that inspires me.  I do, however, try to capture at least a few of these shots throughout a session. 

Another type of photography (one that does inspire me), is documentary photography.  In documentary, the photographer doesn’t give guidance at all, but is merely a fly on the wall capturing what happens as it unfolds. I LOVE documentary.  I love to capture real life moments and emotions.  My birth sessions are documentary, as you can imagine.  In that setting, I am dictating nothing, but just capturing the story that is happening in front of me.  

The problem with using a PURE documentary approach for family sessions is that if I tried to be a fly on the wall and just capture what was happening, it’s likely, at least at first, that your family would stand around awkwardly, not sure what to do with themselves. Probably after enough time passed, they’d forget about me and start going about life, but unless something particularly engaging were happening it may take hours and hours to get a full gallery of images that showed a variety of things. 

So that brings us to lifestyle photography.  Lifestyle photography, for me anyway, is a balance between posed and documentary.  My goal at lifestyle sessions is to capture images as I would at a documentary session, but to hurry things along a bit, and if possible, make them happen in pretty light.  Instead of being a fly on the wall and waiting on your children to play, I’ll suggest they race (on the pretty bridge), play in the leaves, play ring around the roses, or play Simon Says with me.  These are things they might do naturally, but probably not in the span of an hour long photo session unless I asked them to.  

I want to capture real emotion, but instead of waiting on it to happen organically, I might whisper to your kids to go give you a big hug.  I don’t believe that the fact that I asked for it, makes the emotions any less real. It’s a combination of posed and documentary because sometimes I tell you just what to do, sometimes I just suggest an activity and sit back and wait for a moment to happen, and sometimes I act like a documentary photographer and hang back and capture moments that I notice have happened organically without any interference from me.  

This is the combination I find that works best for me at my family sessions, and I think it helps clients to feel more relaxed and natural as well.  As my friend Emily said recently, “my favorites are the posed candids.”What exactly is Lifestyle Photography?This is the combination I find that works best for me at my family sessions, and I think it helps clients to feel more relaxed and natural as well.  As my friend Emily said recently, “my favorites are the posed candids.”

The junk in my trunk

Posted in Aspen Grove Park, Family, Little Kids, Newborns & Babies, Portrait SessionsTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I’ve photographed the birth of both of these beautiful babies, and documenting their growth through photographs is truly one of the greatest joys of my job. This is my favorite session so far, probably because this age is my absolute favorite.  For both of them, the world is still so new and interesting and every tiny thing is a wonderful discovery.  I will never ever get tired of photographing toddlers.

Every now and then, there is a photo that stops me in my tracks as I am editing, and the one below of sweet Charlotte running towards her family did that for me in this set.  Have you ever seen anything as beautiful as that overwhelming and enthusiastic love a toddler has for her parents? 

I recently received a really random text from an acquaintance. She said she new it was an odd question, but wanted to know if there was any chance that I had any sparklers…well past July when they were available at stores and fireworks stands. She needed them for a birthday party she was helping to plan.

I told her that of course I had sparklers. I keep them in my trunk. How many do you need?!?

The sparklers had recently come in handy another time too…I was at the birthday party of one of my closest friends four year old, and they had forgotten candles for the cake. I ran to my trunk and brought her sparklers and we lit those as we sang “Happy Birthday” to the guest of honor. In some ways, it was more fun than candles and maybe that will be a thing from now on.

The sparklers led me to think about the other random things I carry in my trunk, so I thought I would list them for you in case you were curious. So here it is – a list of things actually in my trunk this very moment.

  • Sparklers
  • 6 quilts in various colors
  • A bubble machine
  • Bubble Juice
  • An extra camera bag with camera (not my main camera…I carry that inside)
  • A lightstand
  • Some bottles of water
  • A lighter
  • Some smoke bombs
  • Three clear umbrellas
  • Sophie the Giraffe
  • Yummy Earth Suckers
  • Organic Bug Spray
  • For Real Bug Spray
  • A Tide Stain Remover Pen
  • Wet Ones Wipes
  • Rain Ponchos
  • Sun Screen

Sometimes, I don’t use anything in my trunk, but I like knowing it’s there if I do need it.  For this session, I pulled out the umbrella, though we didn’t need it thankfully as the rain stopped just before we started, and lots and lots of bug spray.  I also stuck a poncho in my bag just in case I had to protect my camera from the rain.  And of course, the suckers came out after the session.

What about you? What do you have in your trunk?  Is there anything in mine that you are surprised about?  Anything you think I’m missing? 

10 moments I want to capture for you

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I feel like I was super lucky at yesterday’s marathon sessions.  I had three sessions scheduled with a 15 minute break between each session.  Between my first and second session, it rained fairly hard.  But then stopped in time for my second session. It caused some humidity and so vengeful mosquitoes, but we made it through. 
I warned this family ahead of time that I was going to struggle with their names.  These girls are Kaylie and Morgan.  My own girls are Megan and Kayla. The similarities helped me to remember their names, but I did, as I knew I would keep mixing them up because Megan is my oldest, but for these two sisters, Morgan is the younger sister. 

I finally managed to retrain my brain by the end of the session, and I hope they forgave me.  What a fun family to work with! I so enjoyed getting to know these girls and their parents. They were so fun to work with and naturals in front of the camera. We had a fantastic time. 
Before a session, I have a survey that asks clients what their most important shots are.  That helps me to balance the priorities of the session, but I always have in my head a list of shots I want to be able to include in a clients gallery. These girls made it easy to capture those shots.

  1. A family shot with everyone looking at the camera. (Not my favorite, but I feel like I need to include it.)
  2. A candid family shot, that shows emotion. (My favorite)
  3. Individual close-ups of each of your children.
  4. Full body & candids of each of your children.
  5. A more posed sibling shot, if possible. (May be difficult if they are super young.)
  6. Mom & Dad together. (It’s important to capture where the family began.)
  7. Details (feet, hair, lovey, hands, etc)
  8. Mom with the kids
  9. Dad with the kids
  10. Fun, create shots of everyone having fun.

Did I miss anything? What would be on your shot list?

Mom was there too

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Lisa said something in her questionnaire when she booked me that really struck a cord with me. 

“I have almost no pictures of myself with my children that aren’t selfies since I am always the one behind the camera. That’s usually how it works though, right?” 

Yes, that is how it usually works, and it sucks. I’m so glad that we were able to get Lisa on the other side of the camera with her beautiful family. It’s hard, and as moms we have SOOOO many reasons why we don’t have enough photos of ourselves, but it is so important to our children that we get in the pictures too. In the years to come, the photos we give to our children are such a gift, but they don’t just want to see photos of themselves…they want to see mom (and dad!) in the pictures too.  

I just love taking photos of mothers with their babies, and this session was no exception. This group was such a joy to capture and made my job so easy. 

And can we just talk about the clothing choices for a minute?  I love the color tones so much. The burgundy and the blues against the backdrop of the green trees was just perfection.

So moms, what’s keeping you from getting in front of the camera?