baby lilac

my good friend, brittany is brilliant and invented, yes, invented calming masks for babies and toddlers. the day we took these pictures, i was able to witness the magic. her baby was asleep almost instantly after putting it on. and they're so cute too! she has lots of different patterns for girls and boys.
brilliant britt! good luck!
click HERE for her website.

meet susan

she is starting her own online business and it sounds fantastic. good luck susan!
hold tight for her website info.!

new diggs.

i had to snap a picture or two of my boo in his new clothes. oshkosh is having a killer sale and i bought a bunch of stuff for $1.99! i love good deals!

oh, wee little one

remember my last maternity shoot? it's a boy! he is so precious. notice the adorable, knit hat he's wearing? my incredibly talented friend and aspiring photographer candida made it special for this shoot. thanks girly!
so this was my very first newborn shoot. i did my research and planned for a longer than usual shoot. i knew the little guy was going to be the boss. and i researched and researched for tips to make the whole thing go smoothly. my friend jessica kettle gave me some very useful pointers as well. with all of this, i'd love to say that it was easy, peasy and was in and out in an hour flat, but i'd be lying. newborns are HARD. it was some of the hardest work i have done as a photographer. although i have to say it was a lot of fun too.
i forget how teency they are. he was such a sweet boy, but wasn't at all happy about being naked.
i was honored to share this time with their little family.






{these were all taken by a window in natural light}

in case any of you are curious as to what worked (for me) and what didn't, i'll let you in on a few helpful tips when photographing wee ones, although i'm not an expert quite yet:
make sure the heat is bumped way up, almost to the point of being uncomfortable. not only does it help them to be happier naked, but their skin looks more smooth and less blotchy.
heating pads (on low to med.) placed under a blanket are genius!
move slowly and quietly. in the beginning of my session his mom had the radio playing, softly, but i think with all the excitement of the shoot he felt a little overstimulated. so i asked her to turn it off and after that he was much more calm.
gently massage their legs and arms to get them to bend into position.
patience is KEY! plan for a lot of stopping, comforting, feeding, etc. i found that taking pictures of newborns is opposite of taking pictures of kids/toddlers, in that the first 20 minutes of a toddler shoot will most likely be your best pictures and the last 20 minutes of the newborn shoot are the best. (in my experience anyway.)

Meet my good friend Candida and her beautiful daughter. She's turning 1-year-old this week. Isn't she amazingly beautiful?! Like mother, like daughter.









These pictures of my boo and his girlfriend made me melt.

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you...

That is ME in a picture! I did a photo swap with my friend, Heather. We just gave each other RAW images and edited them ourselves. So I thought I'd post a couple. My boo was a little, how do you say, monster-esk? He didn't get his nap. I know, I know that is the golden rule when getting family pictures taken. You'd think I'd know this right? Well we've never done this before! And he's so used to getting his picture taken, I figured he'd be fine. Nope. So the moral of this story is, ALWAYS give your kids naps before pictures, no matter how good they are. the end.

I'm pretty sure this was the only picture of him not crying. Smiling would have been asking WAY too much.

So I've been m.i.a for the past little while. I took a little time off to breath for a minute and enjoy the holidays, but I'm back! And I have a ton of catching up to do.
I photographed this cute couple a little while ago. Isn't their dog beautiful?!
hopefully I'll get to take their engagements sometime soon! wink.
Enjoy!