Shelli’s Mitzvah Pre-Shoot

This Bat Mitzvah girl is the older sister of one of my son’s closest friends since preschool and has grown up with my cousin, so I was excited when mom contacted me to do her mitzvah pre-shoot and reception.  She celebrated her reception on her 12th birthday weekend this past weekend, and I can’t wait to share those pictures too!  She totally rocked her session.  I just love her dress.  It happens to be perfect for twirling, which I made sure to capture since she’s a dancer.  We also got to capture some fun dance moves too. It was a pleasure working and celebrating with you Shelli, and I wish you only the best!

K Family: Extended Family Session

I love photographing families, and while extended family sessions bring their own set of challenges, as the number of subjects grows, so does my ability to capture more relationships.  There are parents, children, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, siblings, in-laws, and cousins!  This family had all of the above, and enjoyed a breezy evening at the beach together!

A Extended Family at Tree Tops Park

I’ve had the pleasure of photographing Heather and Jon several times, and now their son Jace at our most recent holiday session, and they’re one of my favorite families to photograph.  So of course, I was excited when Heather said she wanted another family session, this time with Jon’s brothers, sister-in-law, niece, and parents.  The day that had been on my calendar for a while finally came, and we met at Tree Tops Park to enjoy the perfect skies with just enough clouds so it wasn’t too bright, and captured the love in this family.  I was especially impressed by how they planned their outfits.  Coordinated, but not too matchy matchy.  The boots for the ladies are a nice touch.  It’s also cute that the girl family wore pink and the boy family wore blue.  And how cute are those two little ones!?  They really seem to enjoy each others’ company.  They must get it from their parents, who are setting a really great example in that department!  It was great to meet the rest of the A family, and I hope we get to do it again some time!

Anna, Jonathan, Coral, and Zoe

I feel so lucky to get to photograph families like this, who’ve been with me since near when I started.  This mom does a great job styling her family for their sessions, and this year decided to take a break from the fancy hair and dresses for the laid back street feel of Wynwood.  Anyone who follows this blog knows how much I love shooting there, and once again, we were able to find and explore a different set of street art in the area than I had on previous visits.  We shot through the overhead clouds and drizzly skies, and even stopped in a store for a rain delay.  When the rain stopped, we went right back out and continued shooting!  Of course, the only reason the rain stopped is b/c dad and I went back to the car for more umbrellas.  We all know it would have kept raining if we hadn’t.

At the end of our session, this family sent birthday balloons to Jensyn (read his story here), and mom fed Zoe.  I loved being able to capture this.  Most moms who nurse will never forget the look of their baby’s eyes staring at you as they feed, and it was great to be able to preserve that memory. 

Lauren, Evan, and Jack are almost 4!

What a great session to kick off 2016, definitely setting the bar high for the year!  This family is visiting family in South Florida from their home up North, and contacted me to capture them, as they are a soon to be family of four!  We met at one of my favorite parks.  I’d only shot there once before, but I was again impressed by its beauty, and can’t wait to get back there with my own family to explore.  The light through the trees is my favorite, and there are some spots where I felt like I could just stand there all day and shoot until I filled up my memory card! Well, maybe not all day, b/c the light would move, but, I seriously loved it.

And I loved working with these people, too!  Mom took my advice for photographing young toddler boys, which is to bring something he likes playing with, but she wouldn’t mind being in the pictures.  She also didn’t over-correct him and let him do his thing, even when that included throwing his shoe in the river (we did get the shoe back with the help of some volunteers)!  We of course encouraged him to look my way occasionally, but this gentle approach allowed him to feel like he was there to play, which really allowed me to capture his personality and moments that are ‘so you’ for this family!