Emily Is Here!!!

Back in April, I photographed a six-month-old name Lizzie and her family.  Today, I was back in their home to document the early days of their newest addition, Emily. I was super excited to see that Lizzie held on to her killer blue eyes and that she has adjusted to big sisterhood.  Additionally, Lizzie just celebrated her first birthday!!!

I hope you all enjoy your sneak peek.  There will be many more images coming your way in the next week or so.  Thank you so much for having me back.  Congratulations!!  Enjoy these little girls.  The time is going to fly.

Liz and her famous blues:

Beautiful family:

There's no place like mommy's shoulder:

It doesn't get much sweeter than a daddy/newborn daughter shot:

I just had to throw this one in...she's so happy behind those birthday balloons!

No More Babies for Me :(

The baby of our house, Miss Mallory, turns two on friday, October 22.  It seems like just yesterday that I had that 9 pound, 9 ounce, chubby little girl.  She came into the world with a bang, quite literally.  My OB just said, "oh, wow, oh wow, oh wow!  Back up!" Mallory came out so fast, and was so large, that she was nearly dropped and following her was a tsunami of amniotic fluid that sent the whole team to their lockers for new pants and shoes. TMI?

The recent changes in her have been remarkable at the very least.  Miss Mal went from being a totally shy, horrifically moody, impossible-to-please infant, to a quiet, but inquisitive, one-year-old, to an outgoing, hilarious, imaginative, soon-to-be, two-year-old. I'm so proud of this little girl.  It's impossible to describe.

The other day we were out and about and I caught a glimpse in the mirror of the two of them, hand in hand. That was the moment I wanted to freeze and hang onto forever.  But, since we don't have the ability to freeze time, we have photos.  And I will always try my best to freeze moments with images.  There is nothing else I can do.

So happy birthday, Miss Mallory.  We're going to celebrate with costumes, cake, candy and presents.  It'll blow your little mind.

Autumn Love Workshop

Wow, what a weekend!  First, saturday was the 11th anniversary of my 23rd birthday and I celebrated it by attending Jennifer Alder Photography's Autumn Love Workshop from her Creative Minds workshop series.  Jennifer and I went to school together from kindergarten on up and it has been nothing short of awesome working with her while I have been on my photography journey.  She has been somewhat of a mentor to me, and now with her emailed lessons and workshops, I've had a great opportunity to take my images to the next level.  I highly recommend participating if you have even the slightest interest in photography!  The next workshop is in April in the Detroit area, and I will definitely be there.

The day started with child models.  Jennifer set up a tea party setting near the tree line so we could keep the kids occupied while we tried to capture some of those beautiful fall colors.  After the tea party we had two little boys (brothers) join us for some woods shots.   For the final segment of the kids' shoots we walked around the woods with Melanie (Jen's niece) for some solo shots of her. Here are some of my favorite shots of the kids.  Pardon my cheesy borders, but I did this for Facebook and I'm too lazy to redo them :) :

The second half of the day we worked with models.  Jen had hair and make-up artists on site to style them and then we spent the afternoon just kind of walking around and shooting the models in different fall settings.  Here are some of my favorites from the afternoon:

So how beautiful are those models???  It was such a treat to work with them.  Nobody cried for their mom or turned their backs to me, ran off to chase things with wings, pulled handfuls of grass out of the Earth, or got red popsicle all over their faces.  It was a great day!

And now for the creds:

Workshop Director:  Jennifer Alder

Adult Models:  Jennifer Dobransky, Maria Kesto, Mike Ohle and Kelsey Ohle

Hair:  Jacquie Pruder

Make Up: Maria Kesto and Marissa Najor

Oh Miss Mallory

It seems that lately I've been taking a lot of pictures of Lydia and very few of Mallory.  I'm not sure if this is the classic second child syndrome, of if it's because Mallory is usually sleeping when I have time to play with my camera. Either way, she was due for a battle of the wills that is the camera vs. the soon-to-be two-year-old.

I enlisted the help of Lydia to keep Mallory happy so I could snap a few pictures of her.  She did go out her way to NOT look at me, but I still managed to grab a few shots.  Also, these were taken with my brand new 70-200 lens!!  I was concerned about not being able to afford the f2.8L, but looking at these shots, the 4.0L will suit me just fine outdoors.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to point out that my pricing will be changing significantly soon.  I plan to move more towards digital and get away from selling prints so my session fees will all include a CD with printing authorization.  Prints will still be offered, but will be in addition to the session + CD.

Also, if you are interested in portraits with the beautiful fall colors, please email me at photography@auntspray.com.  I still have several weekday sessions open!