Newborn Lifestyle

Dear, sweet Eloise.  What can I say?  You and your lovely parents were my first newborn lifestyle session and you will always hold a special place in my heart.  I have always been nervous going into a new genre within my field.  My heart races, my hands are clammy and I fumble my lens caps constantly.  But when I arrived at your beautiful home that Wednesday morning I thought to myself, "I got this."  This style of newborn photography is what I've always wanted to do.  It's what I instinctively want to capture with my camera when I think about brand-new, squishy, little people such as yourself.  Images of your mama nurturing you...your daddy adoring you....and little details of your perfectly decorated nursery.  These photos are the ones that will be cherished forever and always looked back upon with such wonder.  You were born.  You filled the house with love.  And in the words of your mama, "she made us more than a couple...she made us a family." 

14 | 365 | patience

14 | 365 | patience
Canon 5D Mark ii, Canon 50mm/1.4

A warm & cozy bed, a sleeping kitty and a little Mario Kart help my 7 year old to exhibit patience through illness. [ps. she is feeling much better today!]  

 

13 | 365 | negative space

13 | 365 | negative space
Canon 5D Mark ii, Canon 35 f/2
ISO 250 35mm f/2.2 1/100

12 | 365 | brave

Canon 60D, Canon 60mm Macro
ISO 2500 60mm f/3.2 1/60

My youngest, who is 5, pulled her first tooth out yesterday. But not after 2 days of crying, taking Tylenol, and refusing meals. When she walked out of the bathroom with her accomplishment the first thing her big sister said was, "good job Grace! you were very brave."

 

11 | 365 | begins with the letter "s"

Canon 5D Mark ii, Tamron 70-200, 2.8
ISO 800 70mm f/2.8 1/100

S is for school bus!  This is my youngest daughter, Gracie, who out of my 3 children enjoys independent play the most. I love her imagination and cracked right up at the giraffe in the school bus. I can't believe I shot this with my 70-200. I am really trying to grow/learn and stretch my skills....so when I decided I wanted to capture this and the 70-200 was already on my camera, I stayed committed to using what I had, and work a little harder to get the shot I wanted instead of grabbing my 35 or 50.  This inspiration, to keep it "organic," comes from a new Facebook page and blog called The Organic PhotograpHERS:  A community created to encourage women photographers to embrace simplicity, give back to the world, and celebrate femininity in all her many forms.  Pretty awesome, right? re

Here's where you can find them on FB and this is their Blog.

 

10 | 365 | guide

Canon 5D Mark ii, Tamron 70-200 f/2.8
ISO 125 70mm f/2.8 1/250 

I went to Hamilton College and created a guide for my engagement shoot that I am doing on Saturday.  It's storybook-pretty there!

 

9 | 365 | favorite place

Canon 60D, Rokinon, 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye
ISO 2500 8mm 3.5 1/40

My husband and I bought our daughters a little desk and bench for their hand-me-down PC. It resides in my parlor/office/studio and during the day, when the house is quiet, it rolls through older family photos from 2007-2011. It's my favorite place right now - looking across the room to watch the screen-saver play through our life. This photo was from 2010 when Maddie's hair was growing back after her cancer treatments. I remember that summer so well - all at once I felt elated joy to have her here and the most darkest, deepest fear that the cancer would return.

2 | 52 | imperfect

I love this image. It looks perfect. But the reality is this....my husband and our 3 kids moved into our dream home two years ago and I have yet to complete decorating it. It's a gorgeous 1850 farmhouse nestled along the tracks of the historic Adirondack Rail line and LOVE it so much. But when we moved in my business was taking off, my kids became involved in sports and we started to rework the land into an organic farm. We also added 2 flocks of chickens, 3 flocks of ducks, 2 ponies, a dog, 3 cats and one goat. Life got busy. And my walls are still mostly bare. There are some days when it really bothers me, like when clients come over to pick up orders and I wonder if they think it's weird that their photographer doesn't have many of her own works hanging. And then there are days where I don't beat myself up and accept that my home, for now, is perfectly imperfect.

8 | 365 | bokeh

[said in my best Ron Burgundy from "Anchorman" voice] I love bokeh!  Bokeh-y, bokeh, bokeh.  I was so excited about this day's theme but it was just too gosh-darn cold out today to spend much time on it.  I am committed to doing my 365 fresh every day and not borrowing from my portfolio to supplement.  So here it is.....lots of lovely bokeh....but I also added some of my favorite kick-arse bokeh shots from 2013.

Canon 5D Mark ii, Sigma 70-200 2.8
ISO 100 105mm f2.8 1/160

7 | 365 | legend

7 | 365 | legend
Canon 60D, Canon 60mm Macro
ISO 2500  60mm  f6.3  1/250

This is a 25 cent yard sale book that I picked up this summer about the early legends of Hollywood. It has more well-known actors in it, like Buster Keaton and John Barrymore, but I am always drawn to this girl when I leaf through the pages...I love her style.

...here's Buster Keaton

the previous owner of this book wrote notes on many of the actors....Wallace Beery has the most notes out of anyone in the 200+ page book.  

1 | 52 | reflection

I was sitting at my desk yesterday beating myself up because it was the first week of this photo challenge and I was already struggling with the theme. I even thought about cheating (LOL!) because I have some beautiful reflective shots from my duck's eye, our pond, the sky, etc. Then my 7-yr old daughter said she wanted to show me something. She had been coloring and cutting and had created a hospital room for her Barbie's. She laid the pieces out and explained them all to me ~ I labeled them for you so you can understand what you are looking it. My daughter is a survivor of stage IV Wilm's Tumor (kidney cancer in kids). Her last round of chemotherapy was on January 6th, 2010. She will be a 4 year survivor in a few days and I always get emotional this time of year and absolutely "reflect" back to that terrible time of our lives.....but it hadn't occurred to me to try to photograph this "annual reflection"...until she showed me her work. The interesting thing is, the doctors/nurses/therapists/cancer families all said she would most likely have no memory of her cancer or her treatment since she was 2 and 3 years old when it happened. But as you can see, she remembers everything quite clearly.

6 | 365 | hold

5 | 365 | block

4 | 365 | smoke

3 | 365 | armor

2 | 365 | list

1 | 365 | resolution