Claire has 2 baby dolls that she loves. Loves them so much that she gives them kisses. Monty has sequestered one of her baby dolls but Claire made do with just the one she got for her birthday from my Tia (my aunt who we all lovingly call “Tia” which means aunt in Spanish). I know the last one is blurry – but look at that smile! Melts my heart.
I took these right before we were heading out the door – she’s in her new hat her great-great grandma made for her…really, she loves her dollys!
I should start off with a quick warning. There are a lot of pictures from this session. So sit back, sip a cup of warm tea…no honey needed. The baby in this session will sweeten you right up.
I don’t get many clients that ask for sunrise sessions. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we started shooting bright and early on a Sunday morning and no coffee (for me at least). But seeing Kyle’s smiling little face livened me right up! He has just the right amount of chubs, and such a happy disposition. Unbeknown to his parents, I have deemed Kyle Claire’s California boyfriend. She’s a player like that. His parents were also a dream to work with, we enjoyed the gorgeous sunrise over the Pacific, watched the surfers, and talked about babies – my new favorite topic.
Sage, Liz : It was an absolute pleasure meeting your family!! You guys are awesome and have the cutest baby boy. Hope our paths cross again. xx
Sage’s parents were visiting and showed up for a few moments to get in on the fun (and because they probably can’t stay away too long from their grandson!):
How perfect will their Christmas cards be with these pictures of Santa’s Little Helper!
It was dry. And hot. But we could still feel winter creeping around the corner. We know the dry, crisp air means the turning of leaves, the changing of seasons, into a season of white. We aren’t ready. I suppose we will learn to cope. But this day was about farm living and the bounty harvest of gourds. A first for Claire and I. I was almost embarrassingly excited to find a funny shaped, warped, warty, off-colored pumpkin. My mission for the day. So I could finish decorating our front porch, not that my porch has any decor resembling a haunted Halloween. Just 5 pumpkins we picked up at Whole Foods. (This will be a decorating goal for next year…when Claire understands and can hang dead looking things from the house, put spider webs up for me to walk into, and skulls will be abundant. Or so is the plan.) But for this Halloween, all my hopes were set in these spectacular pumpkins I was going to pick.
We arrived to an enormous parking lot off of a road simply called “County Road 3 1/4”. I don’t know what exactly made it a 1/4 of a road…but that is besides the point. We get out of the car, I start to put Claire in her carrier and she begins to scream bloody murder. I immediately freak out and think I have broken a leg or arm getting her out of car seat. After a thorough inspection, I figured maybe she’s just teething. So I gave her teething tablets and hoped that she would calm down once she saw all the people and such. Nope. It was going to be one of those days. She screamed and screamed until her face was so red and splotchy that it looked liked she had some sort of a disease. The wagon rides, the kids playing, the corn maze, the haunted house…nothing was doing it for her. So we went back to the car. And she was happy to just lay in the back of the car. So we gave her a moment or two, fed her some Winter Squash (with an orange spoon even! How festive of me, right?!), and tried again. With MUCH more success. She LOVED the goats, and looking at the dry corn on the stalks, and watching all the children play. Once we knew she was in a good mood, and I had my temporary fill of playing with the goats, we decided it was time to go pick our pumpkins! But where are all pumpkins?! Um…excuse me, there is a large warty deep orange pumpkin with an askew stalk waiting for me, could you point me in the right direction? I guess I had a very naive perception that I could just walk onto the pumpkin patch and pick my pumpkin. Just that simple. but no. Alas, we figured out that people were waiting in an hour long line to get on a wagon to tour all 2,827,456.928 acres of this place and go pick pumpkins. With the threat of rain and alluring smells of cotton candy and funnel cake, we opted out of that part of the adventure. Instead we found some nice grass behind a building named the “Donkey Dorm” (Don’t ask, I don’t know) and hung out, ate bright pink cotton candy, acted silly and took advantage of the great light to take pictures. Oh, and I had to have a funnel cake too.
All in all, the pumpkin patch resulted in: my Halloween decorations for this year will be the 5 Whole Foods pumpkins, all a little too perfect for my taste; an amplification in desire for a miniature goat; a tummy ache from cotton candy and funnel cake; a mental image of what I think Iowa might look like.
This first collage are mostly all taken by Derek with the standard 18-55mm lens. Why? An experiment. I get a lot of photography questions by mommies with fancy cameras and good intentions, so I am thinking about opening up a “workshop” of sorts to help said mommies learn how to fully capitalize on that expensive birthday present you’ve been asking your hubs for years. Please let me know if you are interested ASAP! If anyone in CA is interested in one of these learning sessions (no spunky name for it yet…) this coming weekend that I am out there, let me know and I will make the time!
The last photos of Claire were taken with a 50mm f1.4. Just a little sharpening and voila! (B&W was a manual conversion from color)
…with the Borowski family. I heart this family…we’re like THIS. (You know what I mean) This was a very leisurely shoot and all of the little moments captured in this series make my heart flutter a little. I want to hang them all together on a big wall in my living room. Even if they are not of my family. One of my most favorite is the 1st B&W where the dog (Baxter) is looking at the camera, dad is dancing with baby and baby is chomping on daddy’s finger. LOVE IT because its so natural. And I like the mini-series of baby eating mommy nose. Because mommy noses are the best. I know because Claire has told me with those two razor sharp teefers she has. Oh, and I must say that I love those baby cheeks – they are simply overflowing!!
I’ve been playing with making my own Photoshop Actions to create more cohesion in all of my photos. But because I am forever indecisive I change them all the time. Some I like, the others the jury is still out on those. If there is one image/set that really jumps out you please let me know! I always love input :) more input!
