Things you should know about this session:

• Baby boy was a little older (7-8 weeks?) than the typical newborn (less than 2 weeks), but as I’ve said before, I’m really starting to enjoy these kinds of sessions because babies are more filled out and interactive.
• The moment I walked into the house, I looked down the long hallway to see that bright point of light where mom was rocking her sweet baby and I had to immediately run to my car to grab my camera to catch that.
• He was sooooooooo squishable. And yes, that is a word. Now.
• LOVED the lighting in this house altogether! So dramatic and painterly.
• His big sister is absolutely amazing with him. Mom is so lucky to have her and she knows it.
• Did you see one of my other favs from this session?

Love, love, loved that they wore this traditional dress for their baby boy’s nine month session. LOVE!

So I asked him if he wanted to take a look at this book. He said yes. And then, he very deliberately put on his reading glasses…all on his own…while his mommy and I tried to stifle our giggles. Seriously? Um yes.

We were *very* lucky to get a nice little break in the rain–just long enough to let us get through the past three days of Back-to-School Mini Sessions. And I have to admit, I pretty proud of our technology setup out here in the middle of the Texas wilderness while doing these shoots. I kinda feel like we’ve got our own Apple store going here (as in computers, but pun somewhat intended). However, all the technology in the world couldn’t save us from two big downfalls of the downpours:

1. Mud. And lots of it. So much so, my van got stuck and had to be towed yesterday. Lovely.
2. Bugs. And lots of them. So much so, my legs look like one great big giant welt. Lovely.

But when you have light like this? Well, there’s nothing a tow truck and some calamine can’t fix 😉

I probably get more nervous when I photograph a repeat family…repeatedly (I can’t find the links to all of the sessions right now, but I think this makes 5). I tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to come up with something new and innovative and exciting and different. What I tend to forget is that families are constantly changing and therefore, any session with them is going to be new and exciting and different by the very nature of it. This is one of those sessions that will go down in my memory as perfect.

The children were perfect, mom and dad were perfectly happy, the weather was amazing, and everyone seemed to fall into the good light without even trying. My favorite part of this session, though, was not captured “on film.” It was the 30 min. or so I stayed after we had finished taking pictures to listen to the oh-so-amusing story of how these two met and fell in love. I think I could have stayed all morning just listening to the two of them reminisce and watching their eyes sparkle as they told their stories. Thank you for that moment, guys. It was a wonderful memory for me.

P.S. Those little toes you see peeking out from behind mom/dad’s arms w/ the peach stripe shirt on my home page slideshow? Those are his. 😉

P.P.S. My personal fav HERE.

When it comes to a cake smash to celebrate a baby’s very first birthday, it’s always fifty/fifty. Some babies dig into the cake, some babies won’t have anything to do with it. This baby, however, loved.every.second.of.it.

And it just so happened to work out perfectly that we were able to do a little “pool” session outside to help clean her up after all of the cake hoopla! {Be sure to check out my FAV image…loved the look on her face when she tasted the cake for the first time.}

I mean, seriously? How did he get to be so lucky as to be born with those amazing locks? He was an absolute perfect little newborn baby for what I believe was his 2nd or 3rd newborn photo session, LOL. Loved his expressive eyes and little chunky thighs! For the last shots, mom had pulled out part of her wedding dress. I was trying to figure out how to use it (it was a bit scratchy to wrap him it it) when we decided to shoot through it. I loved how those turned out!!

This session was actually part of a one-on-one photography mentoring session I had put together for Nina all the way from Singapore! Did you see the shot she took from this session HERE? WOW!!! I was a little nervous about doing this kind of thing because I had never done any one-on-one mentoring before, but Nina convinced me to give it a go. Our time together was too short and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Nina and her work and finding ways to help her grow her own business. Here’s Nina in action at this shoot:

More images from our other adventures together will be coming soon and Nina, I mean it…it was a pleasure hanging out with you and I very much look forward to visiting you again someday! Photogs: if you would like to be notified of possible future photography workshops and coaching, drop a line.

These two weren’t thrilled to be up so early in the morning, but once they got to exploring, they didn’t mind so much. Are you kidding me with those lace outfits at the beginning? Dear me. Too cute! At their newborn session, it wasn’t tough to tell who was who. Still holds true at one year! [Don’t miss the ultimate portrayal of motherhood outtake HERE.]