Took these a while ago and realized I never posted any of them on my blog. This is Jarom, he is only about a week old in these pictures if I remember right. We had actually scheduled a maternity shoot with his mother and 2 days before the scheduled day, she went into labor and the little guy arrived.
I haven’t posted any pictures of my own kids on this blog before. Okay, so I have, but it has been a while. I figured I would keep that separate from my official photoshoots. But why? I don’t have a good reason. I take a ton of photos of my own kids so I figured once a month, I would share just a few of my favorites from that month here on this blog.
These are from January. My oldest is four. It is a fun age. He is definitely testing his boundaries and starting to look more like a little boy. He has grown almost 3 inches in the last few months. Still he is a lot of fun. It always takes some coaxing to get him to cooperate for photos. We usually come to a compromise of no more than 2 pictures that I can take at a time. I usually sneak in a few more than that:)
My youngest is almost 18 months old now. He is the cutest kid ever. We are going to have a struggle on our hands when it comes time to dump the binkies. Notice in this first shot he has two, one in the hand and one in the mouth. That is not uncommon for him. He’ll walk around like that and just keep switching every couple of minutes.
I tell people all the time that smiling pictures are over rated. I hear people say things like “oh I wish he was smiling.” Why? Don’t get me wrong. Smiling photos are great and it is always nice to capture kids when they are happy. However, the reality of life is that sometimes kids cry. It doesn’t make them any less cute though.
Now I feel obligated to show you that he does smile.
What can I say, the Rees family was great. This is the way all family photoshoots should go, especially big families. They were very relaxed and laid back. They wanted me to spend the first hour just taking candid shots of them doing their thing. The family had rented a cabin at Brian Head over Thanksgiving. It was an extended family photoshoot the way it should be done. Only one big group shot was taken.
The Rees family was different. They were very fun. They had no expectations of having everyone looking in the same direction. They also welcomed the fact that some kids would cry and get upset. They thought it was cute. They are right. As much as we would like to control how kids behave and how a photoshoot should go, kids are kids and I welcome that.
A beautiful family in a beautiful setting.
Last Sunday was a special occasion. My niece, the newest grandkid in the family, was blessed by her dad. This particular baby blessing was extra special because of what the little family has gone through in the last year. I am really proud of my brother, I can tell you that much. He is a great guy, always has been.
My sister in-law asked me to take some pictures of Ellie the day of the blessing. I was honored. I often take photos at family events without being asked, but if I get asked specifically, I will do a better job. This is because I put more effort into it. There is a big difference to me between taking pictures just because I am a photographer in the family and being specifically asked. If I know someone really wants pictures, I will put everything I’ve got into it.
The plan was to possibly find some outdoor locations close by, but we woke up to several inches of snow. So, we improvised a studio inside.
Ellie is just a few months younger than my littlest. I love this age. So stinkin’ cute.
October may just be my favorite month. I love fall, the changing colors, the cool weather, it is fantastic. I love earth tones too, so the fall leaves just cry out to be photographed. I couldn’t resist all those leaves on the ground any longer, so I decided to take my boys out for a photoshoot. I take pictures of my boys all the time. So much that it has become rather difficult to get them to pose for me anymore because they are sick of it. However, it had been a while since I did more than a quick photoshoot at home of them, so this was long overdue. We set out with one goal, find a bunch of leaves on the ground. We found the perfect spot.
Isn’t he the cutest one year old ever? I think so, I am biased of course because he is mine.
Our oldest is the hardest to photograph. He doesn’t have much patience for it anymore, but I’ll take what I can get.
And then suddenly the photoshoot turned into this, throwing leaves. I loved it, got some really cool shots of those leaves.
And of course he had way more fun after the leaf throwing started.
And finally one of my favorite shots from the whole thing. I absolutely love that stream of leaves and they are lit so nicely, just pure awesomeness.
I think I will order some large prints of a few of these to go in my office.
Gradyn 14 days old. I couldn’t believe how much hair this little guy was born with and boy is it blond.
I didn’t have much time with the little guy, but we got a few good shots of him and his mom and dad were happy.
Dead grass and sunflowers make awesome backdrops. These are some photographs from a recent photoshoot I did with two cute little kids. They were really fun to photograph. Whenever I photograph kids, I always think about just how special the photos will be as time goes on. Life moves at such a fast pace. I am so glad we can freeze moments in time with a camera. I love capturing their little expressions and personalities.
Yum… Cheerios! Look at those cute little teeth.
There are those little teeth again.
As I was going through these images, it started to feel like a stop motion video. I decided to turn it into a little video, the entire shoot condensed to under two minutes.
My wife and I wanted to do something special for her nephew who is really into little league baseball. He is a pretty good little ball player. We thought it would be cool to make him some personal baseball cards with his photo and stats on them. We made him get in his uniform and had a fun little photo shoot.
We waited until as late in the afternoon as we could, but needed to head back to Cedar City, a 3 hour drive. We ended up doing the photoshoot when the sun was still pretty harsh, but with the sun to his back and high speed sync fill flash in the front, we made the best of it.
The next shot is the one we chose for the baseball card. He plays several positions, but his favorite is pitcher.
The shots turned out great and we are excited to give him the cards. Reminded me of my baseball days. The little league and Babe Ruth years were the best.
These are possibly two of the cutest sisters ever. I had a blast taking their pictures. Addie was a little shy at first, but she quickly opened up and was a little super star in front of the lens. And then little Torence… wow, look at those eyes.
This series of images was just too fun not to share here. This is my 3 and a half year old son, Gavin. It is getting increasingly difficult to get him to pose for the camera. I managed to keep him in one (general) spot for a few shots. There are 5 sets of images in this series so don’t overlook the “next” button. Launch the mini gallery now.