Brothers

$99 Infant & Child Photography Special Offer
May - August 2014

Professional infant and newborn photography taken in your own home by a local artist.  Avoid the hassle of the mall's studios with restricting time limits, pose requirements, package gimmicks, and unfamiliar settings that disturb baby.  We come to your home or favorite location and capture precious moments for you.  Show off your little boy splashing in a puddle or capture those miss matched socks your little girl insists on wearing now that she can dress herself.  Perhaps you too have a new addition and want to share not just the cute little fingers and toes, but all the beauty of your nursery.  We can work in any room to tell your story. Great for newborns, shy children, family photos with pets, and cake smash images for first birthday celebrations!

No hidden fees or re-order archival charges, and no need to call back for extra prints. all the edited images come to you on one DVD. Collages, birth announcements, and other items can be ordered through our collections or build your own with your favorite website and no need to worry about coming back for a release every time you want more.

Puddles Are Fun!

Spring Time Means Splashing in the Puddles

Some days you just need to jump in the puddles.

On Friday my husband lost his job.  That job is our steady income so I can continue taking weddings as they come rather than need to contract out for other work or raise our prices and make it more difficult for clients to budget for quality work.  If you are familiar with the job market in the United States you'll understand why this is a frightening thing for my family.  Compound it with the impending birth of our new baby and the fact that it was his company which provides our insurance... we're in a tough position to say the least.

SO... how does one cope with all this stress?  I take my son outside in his cute little rain boots and let him enjoy the warm spring day while jumping in muddy puddles.  I'm still cleaning dirt off the camera, but I also promise the photos are worth it.  His smile makes the stressful moments fade and reminds me that so long as we have a roof over him, food in his belly, and can afford to do the same for our newborn... that means it will be alright.

Keep an eye out after I play with some new color editing programs and you'll get to see my handsome little man and his classic "playing in the puddles".

Great Causes We Love

Things have gone rather off track around here at the moment.  What should have been happy news of expecting a new baby in May has lead to some serious health concerns and partial bed-rest orders.  To make up for the lost time this is creating, I have been doing some work promoting local and national charities and great causes dear to my heart.  Today I'll be sharing those here before heading out to catch some photos of my little boy on his way to do his first real Trick-or-Treat.


EXTRA LIFE

Video game lovers around the country will be donating their time, energy, love, and dignity this weekend in a 25 hour marathon gaming event known as Extra Life.  A dear friend and former co-worker of mine is doing her part yet again and can be followed here as she sells her soul to the gamer gods to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.

My husband and I are avid gamers with a deep love of zombies and Skyrim, so this is a cause we can both get behind and open-hearted nerds who have seen the wonderful and terrifying side of children's hospitals.  Please take a moment to consider donating to this cause and show the world what a little love and an X-Box can do when used the right way!

NILMDTS

More years ago than I care to think of, I was introduced to the program Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS) when a friend lost her baby in an unexpected twist of fate at the end of a healthy pregnancy.  The love in those images helped their family begin to heal by having a way to say goodbye.  These photographers are such loving and kind people who donate their time and work to grieving parents having to say goodbye just as they whisper hello.

As I mentioned, I am facing a difficult and high risk pregnancy at the moment.  Perhaps it is knowing that there is such a fragile balance with a new life that makes this all the more dear to my heart today.  Please take the time to see what an amazing gift these people do.  Someday I hope to join them in their work to bring a little less hurt to a time no family should be forced to face.

And now, I have a cuddly little race car driver (we are big BBC America fans and TopGear is always popular in our house) waiting to go collect some goodies.  Good night and Happy Halloween to you all!

Earth Day & Spring Blooms

The flowers starting to bloom in front of my door.

My "day job" has eaten up a ton of time this month.  I agreed to take on extra hours when a co-worker left unexpectedly and we needed to fill the gaps in the week.  The income certainly has not hurt, but it makes time to shoot harder to find.  With the grass growing and the snow all gone, flowers have started to appear on the little patch of green between my front door and parking space and this makes me want to shoot even more.  Spring has such wonderful light for catching the natural world. 

Taken to show the new dye and make-up purchased 
from my "other job" at LUSH: Handmade Cosmetics.

To go with the change of seasons, I changed my hair color again.  This time going darker and working with the shorter trim I have now.  My skin has the wonderful pink glow that means my fragile balance between too much sun (I'm a lovely Victorian alabaster most of the time) and not being able to resist going out into the garden has shifted to the sunny side.  I think over the next few days while I am home it will get worse.  I plan on spending much of my time outside starting the long task of preparing my garden and playing with the tiny monster boy.

All this and planning out a photo shoot for the little man's birthday.  I avoided Easter photos with him but I cannot escape that his second birthday is coming and as a photographer mommy I will have to think about what to do for this year.  Two years is a hard age to shoot as he wants to run, giggle, fidget, and generally be a crazy little boy.  His favorite object at the moment is his blue kickball, and I suspect that will appear in this year's photos as well as the "guitar" he so enjoys (my husband's old PS2 controller) and his favorite shoes ever (my gardening boots).

Check back soon for wedding shots and some great wildlife items from a trip to the rescue and rehab center for injured animals!  Tonight I leave you with a look at one o my favorite parts of spring... baby things!  These kittens are from our neighbor's most recent litter of fluffy toe nibblers.

Scrunchy Face

I forget at times how much fun it is to chase my toddler around with a camera.  He is a tiny camera ham and loves to grin and make a cute scrunchy face whenever he looks at me from the other end of the lens.  I had the opportunity to be a guest at the wedding of a friend last weekend and though he would turn and smile at the the photographers, he never made that face to anyone else.

Today I am prepping for wedding season by rolling out a new collection of ideas to pull models and brides for my 2013 advertising.  So for now I will share another few shots of my cuddly boy as I finish making edits and get ready to share great things net week. These are raw and right from the camera, something about them is too cute to "correct" in editing.

The Torture Of Just ONE Good Shot

I  am the mother of a very precocious little monster.  At eighteen months, he has grown up with a camera constantly documenting his every adventure.  What I share here is a small fraction of the memories that fill albums and frames in my home; but they all come at a price.  Hours of practice and careful planning to devote the time to each shoot.

The shot above is one of two successful images from a period of twenty minutes on Saturday afternoon.  He was occupied with the cat stalking through the tall grass, a bird flying past, the dog waiting to cuddle with him, and finally a pile of doggie left-overs from when that same cuddly dog had to visit the bushes.  Which is why I wanted to point out that toddler photography requires the understanding that a single great image is all you may receive and it may not be the one you desire.

Every year in my early days working chain store studios and selling retail photography, this was the time of year that made me cringe.  Families and parents that otherwise felt photography was a waste of time and money would begin booking sittings while some ideal image of two toddlers sitting with model perfect smiles in a catalog perfect holiday scene danced in their heads.  I often watched new hires and veteran coworkers being insulted and abused for failing to make their children magically behave like perfect darlings.

What I will be doing now is sharing all those moments that could have made lovely photos that fell victim to the evil toddler photobomb! Yes, even professionals suffer from those moments.  In fact, with my son visiting my studio on a daily basis at times, I have a plethora of material to choose from for this entry.

The image to the left is also for Saturday, though taken at my home with studio lights up while attempting to take an updated headshot for his portfolio**.  As you can guess, he was having no part of Mommy and her camera being in his face.  This is a rather typical response from toddlers to anything which they no longer want.


The next image, on the right this time, was taken at a family gathering on Thanksgiving Day.  This is a common moment of poor cooperation through extreme sleepiness on the part of the child.  My son had refused to nap and was about two hours past his usual time for unconsciousness following his watching of Sesame Street.  I was already forming the idea of this blog entry and was pleased to get this "gem" for our examples because I cannot begin to count the number of parents with infants and toddlers that do not understand how vital it is that they consider feeding and napping times when booking with photographers.

As the manager of a few chain studios I often gave advice to parents as they booked about outfits, props, and the often ignored "how to time your booking".  The factors were simple, children who are over tired or just woke up from a nap will be puffy-eyed and grouchy.  Children who did not have their snack prior to sitting for the camera should not be expected to just wait because they will get focused on food over smiles.  Sleeping newborns should be allowed to nap and wake up on their own; babies tucked into a gift wrapped box can be the best holiday card you will ever find.  I stuck this information into the Brain-File of advice along with having your child partially dressed for their sitting as you arrive so that you can put on their shirt or dress and make sure it is free of stains.

The example here is from another day I was in the studio just to shoot my son's photos.  This was at the same session that involved his destruction of a birthday cake, though I intentionally planned to do that last.  At this point it was late June and I wanted to take photos of his beach outfit before allowing him to make an epic mess.  I had put the hat on his head, but he insisted on holding it, leading to a natural failure with this second image.  I fell victim to having an idea in my head that he would leave the hat on, and instead he fought it and eventually tossed the hat on the floor before we moved on to our next phase.

Toddlers making a mess or doing things you do not expect can also make for lovely moments.  Keep in mind that there is often a way to make something beautiful without having to retake or ask your photographer to create a false image through large amounts of image manipulation.  That photo of your little angel looking off into the distance and not making eye contact with the lens can be just perfect. The cozy little monster sleeping through his photos could make for a perfect "Sugarplums Danced in Their Heads" moment to share with family.  And that kid with the grin that shows every missing tooth... he is just perfect even when he's asking Santa for his two front teeth!