The Wagner Family

I have known the Wagner family since I was in junior high and they've always been very supportive and kind towards me and my adventures. :) The daughter is one of my best friends and we've stayed in touch over all these years. I was pleased to shoot their family photos this year at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens on a gorgeous fall day here in the Pacific Northwest last weekend.

The two hardest things about this shoot were a) getting everyone in focus, in a decent amount of light, and making sure limbs and heads weren't cut off too awkwardly; and b) getting the toddler to look at the camera. The two year old was being two and my regular tricks were not getting any sort of responses from her at all. Combined with the large group setting, it was hard getting a shot where everyone was looking and smiling without closing their eyes at me. I had much better results shooting her one on one with a family member being entertaining behind me. Maybe next time at a large family shoot I'll wear a funny hat and have rabbits pop out of it to garner the kids' attention. :)

Onto the sneak peek!

Meet the Wagners


one of the better shots where everyone was looking at the camera


I love the look in her face here


three generations


and oh look! a real smile!


this is my favorite thing about the Botanical Gardens. It comes with its very own hobbit door! Perfect for toddlers!

Apples and kiddos

Our yard has an inordinate amount of fruit trees for being in the city and a smaller lot. This time of year is apple harvesting time, and I thought they'd make a great background to shoot against. Unfortunately, both my kids had other plans and weren't the most cooperative of subjects, but I did get a couple of good pictures. Yes, all the apples you see were picked from our yard.

If you've been to my website recently, you'll have seen this picture already. For this picture of Samuel, I used my 85mm 2.8 lense with me perched on top of a six foot tall ladder shooting down at him. he refused to lay down in the apples, probably due to the fact that the sky was bright (even though it was overcast). Hence the close cropping.


Albert was much easier to pose. We just laid him in the grass and positioned apples around him. Again I'm up on the ladder shooting down at him with my 85mm.

"mom, what are you doing?"


I moved off the ladder to shoot him a little closer for these pictures. Todd had the great idea to give him an apple so his hands wouldn't constantly be in front of his face.


and finally, a smile!


and what we do with all those apples - make applesauce! Samuel here is operating the apple corer peeler machine.


in action

The Rossi Family

I met this happy couple at Bothell Landing Park in Bothell on a beautiful fall day here in the Pacific Northwest. The park was a really gorgeous backdrop, with a pedestrian footbridge over to the Sammamish River Trail, the river backdrop, and some historical houses as well. I'm really looking forward to shoot there again.

The wife had told me she wanted some family pictures taken in the gorgeous fall foliage with her, her husband, and their two cutie daschunds. It was my first time photographing dogs so I was pretty excited. I was also pretty excited that this couple were pretty easy going to any suggestions I had, including my obsession to get a picture with leaves falling around them - perfect for fall!

The happy couple




the footbridge


in front of the historic old school house


such good sports to pose for me


laying on the wooden footbridge across the wetlands


family portrait


dogs!




the husband had the great idea to have me shooting while the dog ran across to him. This was my favorite shot of that series


happy autumn

The Larson Family

I've been friends with this couple since high school, and their son is just a year younger than my Samuel and are good buddies. Melissa has been kind and very supportive of my journey to become a photographer and has let me take pictures of her son and of her family. Her main goal this shoot was to get a family portrait where Jarrett was smiling, and I think we achieved that result.

Meet the Larson Family


I caught him as he was running around in circles at the park


Serious Jarrett


ready to jump


smiling for the camera

The Mitchell Family

I've known the Mitchell family for a very long time. The daughter and I met on the school bus during junior high, and have been friends ever since. It was my pleasure to take their family pictures this weekend. We met at Martha Lake Park in Lynnwood, which is actually a very pretty little park. It's right by the lake with docks and piers, plus plenty of open green space to play and run around for little energetic toddlers. There were three generations of Mitchells in the pictures, and it was really cute to just see the little cousins together.

One difficuly I had during the shoot was getting both kids to look my direction at the same time and getting smiles. I finally settled for just getting them to both look at me and one of them to smile. I'm also still working on posing, positioning, and shoot bigger family portraits without them looking too stiff or forced. The weather was a bit on the colder side the day of our session, which made finding non-forced poses difficult as people did not want to stay outside for very long. Hopefully with more practice I'll be able to shoot shots that are as fun and candid as my baby portraits.

Meet the Mitchell family




Mom and Dad Mitchell


I love the look on his sweet face


baby tossing!


cousins

Dana and Idris

Dana is a good friend of mine who is getting married. I met her and her charming fiance Idris last weekend at the Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle. They agreed to be my photography guinea pigs and let me shoot their engagement portraits. I was pretty excited, as I'd never been to the Olympic Sculpture Park before and it was a pretty nifty place. Dana and Idris were really great to work with, and pretty willing sports to do whatever I directed of them. I am kicking myself that I didn't bring along my sheet of "interesting and artsy engagement poses" and as such, felt that I had a lot of stiff, formal poses for the portraits. However, I did get some nice shots of the two of them, and definately had a lot of fun in the process. Hopefully they did as well!

The happy couple


such great loving looks they gave each other


Dana, Idris, and of course the Space Needle


they are both great dancers


at the end of this little dance set Idris picked Dana up and I snapped this shot


checking out the view of downtown Seattle


overlooking Puget Sound


and my favorite shot of them

David - four months old

Our good friends recently had a baby and wanted to get some pictures of him in his baptism outfit. Since they were going to be here for pictures, they were kind enough to let me practice some other shots on him, including some fun hat shots and naked baby shots. David was a great little trooper, enduring the outfit changes and being entertained by two women, a wildly dancing man, and a highly curious three year old. Here are some of his pictures!

meet David


the baptism outfit, aka "pilgrim David"


mr smiles!


who doesn't love a baby in a hat?


one last picture

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep is an organization which does infant bereavement photography and helps families capture memories with their beloved infants after they have passed. I am proud to state that I'm a volunteer photographer for such a wonderful organization.

With the Month of October being recognized as Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, The Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation holds its Annual Fund Drive for six weeks starting in mid-September and ending on October 31.

President Ronald Reagan enacted Proclamation 5890 in October of 1988 to recognize that each year, approximately a million pregnancies in the United States alone end in miscarriage, stillbirth, or the death of a newborn child. Reagan stated, "A national observance offers us the opportunity to increase our understanding of the great tragedy involved in the deaths of unborn or newborn babies. It also enables us to consider how, as individuals and communities, we can meet the needs of bereaved parents and family members... " To read the full Proclamation signed by Reagan, click here.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO NiLMDTS.

If you are in a place to make even a small contribution to NILMDTS, please know that doing so will continue to allow the organization to provide improved resources, training, communication, and other tools necessary in support of our amazing contingent of professional photographers who provide the gift of free remembrance portraiture to families in need.

Our next project we are working on is an online, interactive webinar version of our Formal NILMDTS Training taught by Co-Founder Sandy Puc' allowing anyone in any country with access to a computer to complete the course online. Donations help make programs like this a reality!

Your Donations Support the Organization in Many Ways -

By supporting the continued education of our volunteer photographers

By allowing us to further our outreach to hospitals and hospices across the world

By offsetting the costs associated with outreach efforts including Formal NILMDTS Traingin Seminars

By supporting the Family Forum which creates a productive and supportive haven for healing

By supporting the Photographers' Forum which provides a helpful environment for our member photographers to express their feelings and receive advice on the various issues that they face in this noble work

By supporting the day to day operations of our Headquarters Offices

Holiday Portrait Special

It's that time of year, when the leaves change, and the air smells crisper, and you start finding yourself thinking about how close the holidays are coming! This year I'm going to offer a Holiday Portrait Special for family portraits. Perfect if you're looking for a good gift for the parents or grandparents, and also for that great shot in the holiday card or newsletter.

The Holiday Portrait Special will include the following:

Consult with me to get an idea about what you want in your pictures

One hour photography session

up to 6 people can be included in a session (additional people in each session will be $25 each)

proof gallery will be available within one week of the shoot

includes two finished 8x10s

includes a CD of 5 high resolution images for your personal usage

$99 for the package

As an added bonus, I give a $50 credit towards any package/print order to any referral which books a session with me. If you refer three people who book a session with me, you get 50% off any photography package/print order. So get the word out! :)

You can visit the families gallery at my website for more examples of my family portraits.

Breastfeeding

I thought a lot about adding pictures depicting nursing or breastfeeding on my website. Originally I had included a nursing picture in my gallery, but after a couple of pointed comments about "seeing that sort of thing" from people, I took it off because I didn't want to appear offensive. I'll let it stand that I'm an advocate of breastfeeding, but more to the point, I wanted people who were looking to capture that nursing relationship with their child to come across my site and go "hey, I want something like that to remember these moments with my child".

What I didn't want was someone coming across my site and going "hey, those aren't pictures I want to be seeing on a prospective photographer's website" or "hey, those are inappropriate pictures". I was a little torn between treading the line of artistic expression, and not alienating prospecting clients. In the end, I realized that I couldn't please everyone, and the more true-to-myself photos I showcased in my portfolio, the more comfortable I would be with the types of clients that would be booking sessions with me. Long story short, I included two nursing pictures in the newborn category and hope that you find them as sweet and touching as I do. Let me know what you think about them. :)