The Parish Family

I did my last session of the year (cold weather and I are not friends) on Sunday with my BFF and her beautiful family. We did a quick mini-session to get a picture for their Christmas card. Their yard was PERFECT for the shoot!

Here are my favorites:

Couples: Austin & Sarah

About a week and a half ago, I went with Austin and Sarah   (my brother & sister-in-law) to do a couple's shoot. It was so much fun! I hadn't done one before...I think couples are a favorite--but it helps when they're so much fun to work with! Here are a few of my favorites, along with some fun ones:

Photo Shoot

For the first time in over a year, I picked up my camera for a photo shoot with my lovely sister, Madi. We had a lot of fun, despite the creepy guys in one of the parks and the wind that almost blew us away at times.

Here are my favorites:

The Anatomy of a Photo Shoot...or something like that

Sydney was at P.E. with Keely, and Jaxon was napping. "What a perfect time to do his newborn pictures," I thought. I haven't done a shoot since last fall, so I'm a bit rusty. I did a few pictures of Koen when he was about 3 weeks old, so I thought I could handle it since I at least had that under my belt.
I have very limited resources, so I utilized what I had. Throw open the curtains, move the couch. Check. Coffee table goes in front of the picture window, stick some pillows on top of it for cushion, and throw a black sheet over it and drape it across the back of the couch for a backdrop. Got it.
I grab my gear and make sure it's ready to go...now to get my sleeping babe from his bed and *hopefully* keep him asleep to pose him the way I intend--all cuddly like in a cute little newborn ball of flaky skin and tiny rolls.
He stays asleep through getting his mohawk-and yes, I used hair product on him to make sure it would stay.
I undress him, and start to try and pose him like all of the precious pictures I see all my photographer friends do.

Uh oh.

He's waking up.

What now? He doesn't want to do what I want to do! I snap a few here and there, all the while trying to keep his little boy parts covered, and assistant Ali out of the way...

He fusses.

He poops.

He potties on my sheet.

*sigh*

We take a break to nurse, and try again:

This is a lot harder doing the photography and the nursing, changing, & cuddling!

After washing his hair, and then more not-so-great attempts, I grow a bit weary and decide to put him in my Maya Wrap to let him nurse and *again, hopefully* sleep so that I can get what I had envisioned.

It worked!

He's asleep, really asleep!

Here goes nothing...

So all in all, this took 2 hours. I didn't get very many, and had every intention of setting up
another day to get some of him with Jason, but it hasn't happened yet. I wanted to make sure I got some of him while his cord was still attached, and I did. I'm pleased about that. I would have liked to get some of me with him, but for some reason I'm not feeling ambitious enough to try posing with him--while still looking natural--using a tripod and running back and forth between shots...something about that doesn't evoke "calm and relaxed" feelings, and in fact, makes my normally very low blood pressure go above 118. I can feel it.

Valentine Outtakes

The girls and I had a very quick photo shoot this morning for Valentine's Day.
This one went much better than our
Christmas Shoot:

Modeling while I check my settings.
Quite lovely.

Not editable, really, so I didn't even try

...but they're so stinkin' cute!!

Ali's still in the mood for kissing.
She kept running to kiss me in between shots
--and who can resist those cute (not so) little lips?!

The Hap-Happiest Season of All?!

The other night I went to Target (alone!) and bought the girls some Christmas pajamas. I did this for two reasons:

1) So they would have cute pjs on Christmas morning, of course.
2) So they would look cute in their Christmas card picture.

We were going to do a family picture this year, but nixed that idea. I wanted to be creative and would feel quite limited by a tripod. Pressing on...

**I will preface this part by saying that these pictures were taken on the same day as my "One of Those Days" post.**
**Oops, I lied. It was Thursday that I took these...but with last week, it doesn't matter. It was all the same!**

They were dressed, their hair was curled and I was armed with my camera and speed lite. Determined to capture natural looking expressions and pictures of girls having fun, we began with jumping on the bed.
This posed a problem because Sydney is bigger than Ali and therefore jumps higher. Ali didn't mind, she just turned her back toward me and held onto the bed and jumped...So I say, "Hold hands and jump!" Oops, there goes Ali, about to slide off the bed...



Ok, obviously that wasn't working. Let's try laying down:





We were all worn thin by this point, so I decided to quit. It was that or cry...which I probably did later anyway. The happy part is that when I downloaded all of these onto my computer, we found one that would work. Syd's being cheesy, but that's Syd. =)

See? Now you're really excited to see our Christmas card, aren't you?! But you can't yet, sorry. That would ruin the surprise and I LOVE surprises.

Check It Out--

If you haven't seen my photo blog recently, I've added my 2 latest sessions including one set in the 50s!


Fly on the Wall

Downtown Photo Shoot

I had my first practice session last night with Shasta. Here is the link to her pictures:

Fly on the Wall Photography

We had a blast! After the shoot we went to Scooter's Coffeehouse for some candy bar espresso smoothies. Yum!