To quote Mom when telling his birth story: “Had we stayed at home even 30 minutes longer, we would have made the evening news for a highway delivery.” And she’s not exaggerating in the slightest. This little guy arrived less than 30 minutes from the time they walked through the medical admitting doors and, just to make sure his entrance will never be forgotten (as if that’s even possible!), he made certain the turkey and trimmings were served hospital bedside, arriving on Thanksgiving Day. Truly a blessing of all blessings.

I love photographing newborns within two weeks of age because it allows us to mold them more easily in their sleepy states and capture those unique newborn characteristics that will be gone too soon, like the soft fuzzies on their backs and shoulders (see the first image – one of my absolute favorites from this session). Enjoy this tiny piece of newborn wonder.

Just a few images of our Christmas Eve Day morning and afternoon, spent making and decorating sugar cookies for Santa. It was Bella’s first time to help Grandma with the coveted recipe and the pictures speak for themselves. My favorite is the last one: That’s Santa’s special cookie for tonight, imprinted by Bella just in case he needs identification. Enjoy and have a wonderful holiday!

Hear that? No, really … take a good listen.

It’s the sound of me exhaling, accompanied by a good, long stretch. I can’t begin to explain how great it feels to have made it up, up and over the busy fall/holiday season and be sitting on the downward side knowing that not only have all client products arrived on time, but we were able to get our own holiday cards out last week, too. It’s an unbelievable feeling! Tomorrow night, we even have a small group of photographer friends getting together for dinner and much-needed chatter. I can’t wait!

2008 was an amazing year and I’m so blessed and humbled by the support of my husband, my family, wonderful clients, friends and faithful blog readers. I could not in a million years have dreamed I would be at this point in my business, right here, right now. Keep watching the blog for several new items in 2009, including a new website design and new products.

I’ll be posting more client holiday cards later this week, but thought it appropriate to start with our own. We got lucky the afternoon we did this session. She had just woken from her afternoon nap and the light was fading quickly, but it was simply tooooo cold to go outside for pictures, so we threw on the holiday outfit and set up in my husband’s office … a small room with an east-facing window. Keep in mind what little light was left was on the other side of the house and I didn’t want to break out the flash. Luckily, my trusty 50/1.4 did the trick. This is what I love about natural light — the soft glow on the skin and the depth of contrast and tones. It almost looks like we were in a studio, but it was simply a chocolate leather couch.

The back image of our family was shot earlier this fall by my wonderful photographer friend,
Jamie Miller. I had always wanted this shot for our family, but we never seemed to find the time to get our own family shots taken in the same manner that I do for my clients (isn’t that the case with most photographers?) So thank you, Jamie, for giving us such a beautiful gift that we will treasure forever.

Happy Holidays to all!

He’s been called a lot of things when people ask or comment about him: “rocking chair baby,” “Santa baby/red hat baby” … And now, it appears, we’re gonna have to add “little gentleman” to the list. He’s nine months old and oh my … he’s still melting hearts with that pensive gaze that’s become his little trademark. But this time (perhaps for good measure in hopes of sweet things in his stocking?) he blessed us with so many toothy smiles, too.  I’m loving the classic feeling of these, courtesy of the lighting, our surroundings and his perfect holiday attire. And, as usual of late, I’m loving color and black and white. My split personality says I don’t have to choose.

Enjoy my favorites from this session.