Hartley Pool Party

Hartley Pool Party

As promised, here's the post covering the second half of the Hartley Family reunion. This was a pool party/barbeque/birthday party at the grandparents' house in Orem. They had a great backyard and a wonderful pool, and it turned out that "Nana" teaches swimming lessons there for all ages, from super little to adult.

Thomas was actually up by now and so accompanied me on this shoot (he wasn't about to get up pre-sunrise to make it for the more formal shots). We played the paparazzi as the family ate and chatted, and then as the birthday girl was blowing out her candles and opening her gifts.

As they got into the pool we began to really have some fun. Some of the guys started tossing the kids to see how high they could get them, and despite the failing light we got some shots I absolutely loved!


...and the food was GREAT. :D













You should click here and look at the rest! :)

Hartley Family Reunion

Hartley Family Reunion

After doing family pictures for the Hartley Family last month, and after hearing Meredith say that her nieces and nephews could give her kids a "run for their money" in the cuteness department I was looking forward to shooting their reunion.

After working it out scheduling-wise it was decided we would get up early in the morning to take more formal pictures just after sunrise at this great park in Orem (a new find... I expect to use it many more times in the future); later on in the day a pool party at "Nana and Papa's" house was scheduled and we were asked to take candid pictures there as well. (I'll do a post with the candids when I finish them up)

There were a ton of shots to get and so many personalities to try and capture- I'm glad that Matt was yet again accompanying me on second camera as we were able to get a lot more photos than we would have otherwise. Here's just a few of them....











To see more of the photos, and all the rest of the people click here.

Zander

Zander

I recently upgraded my primary camera (I LOVE my new d700!!), and so I did a quick shoot in my studio with my landlord's son. He had recently tripped and fell so he was sporting a nice cut on his face, but that didn't stop him from hamming it up in front of my camera. Thomas and I had also recently made a thrift store run looking for props and I found the most awesome miniature drum set and motorcycle. Zander had a blast playing with them, and Thomas' jacket and helmet were super adorable.







To see a few more photos of Zander, check out his gallery on smugmug here.

Look at me! Look at me!

Look at me! Look at me!

I love taking pictures of children. I love their smiles, adorable outfits, and the amazing amount of vitality and life that shows up in their pictures. Taking pictures of children is one of the rewarding things that I do as a photographer. It is also one of the most difficult. The sheer amount of energy that little kids possess combined with all the fascinating distractions around them make it difficult for them to look at the camera when they are supposed to, especially in a posed setting. The more children in the shot, the more difficult it can be to get them all looking the right direction.



I love having parents around, as they often know what to say or do to make their children smile and look around. However, here is an important tip to make your children's pictures come out well-

If we are having trouble getting everyone to look in the right direction, before you starting waving your arms, making funny noises, and saying "look at the camera! look at the camera!" consider where YOU are standing. 99% of the time they are going to be looking at YOU, so in order to make sure they are looking in the camera's direction, you want to be standing directly BEHIND me. Otherwise they may smile, laugh, and open their eyes nice and wide, but the majority of the time they are going to look at the source of all this entertaining distraction, instead of at the boring camera lens pointed in their direction.

Thus, remember the rule- unless you are standing DIRECTLY BEHIND the photographer, it might be best to just let me be the entertaining distraction. Parents often are the best people to bring out an awesome smile, but unless you're standing in the right place, it doesn't quite work. If it's not practical to be directly behind me due to space constraints, let me do all the work. I am more than happy to make funny faces, weird noises, jump up and down, and generally make a complete fool of myself in order to get everyone to look at me. It's in the job description. The problem comes when I am just one of a crowd of people jumping up and down making funny noises. :)

Of course, this only applies if we're looking for shots where they ARE looking directly at the camera... sometimes it's great when they are not.

Hartley Family

Hartley Family

Meredith contacted me a few months ago to schedule a photoshoot of her family and later of her family reunion. I happily accepted, and was pleased when I saw Meredith posting on Facebook before the shoot about how excited she was for me to take their photographs.

I ended up meeting them in Salt Lake at Liberty Park along with my great friend Matt Cobabe who was assisting me that day. It was a beautiful day and we were able to take pictures in this amazing garden nearby before finishing up around the pond in the park. Best of all? This is a great looking family, and their kids are ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE. :D



As I was editing through this shoot my husband Thomas was sitting next to me helping me out and after a couple close ups of the kids he said to me, "Wow, these kids are freakishly cute". I laughed, but I completely agree. Some of the biggest eyes I've ever seen, and they were just tons of fun to shoot.

Matt let their little boy play for a few minutes with his camera, and he was utterly fascinated by all the buttons.



I loved that this was the way she seemed to smile; almost every time she would grin and kind of twist her tongue out at me...



To see more of this super fun shoot, and more of THE CUTENESS click here.

1st shoot at the new studio

1st shoot at the new studio

What an adorable kid! We thought it'd be fun to get him in Dad's clothes for Father's Day (if any one is interested, a studio sitting is still only $50 - you get a full-resolution CD :D). It worked out really well to have him running around the studio room instead of outdoors because we could actually catch him. Every time Teagan posed he actually waited to hear the "Click" from the camera's shutter closing before he moved on. He knew exactly what was going on, and he LOVED the attention.





He was such a poser! I honestly did not pose him on this tricycle - he sat there, leaned back, and looked straight at us :)



To see more photos of Teagan, visit
his gallery.

Studio photography

Studio photography

A few years ago I worked at Sears Portrait Studio. Photography had previously been a hobby of mine, but at Sears I got the idea to run my own business. It made me sad to see people pay $150+ for only 10 photos on a CD (taken by a photographer with 3 weeks of training) and a few enlargements. I hoped to earn more than $7/hr for myself and not charge as much for my clients. That's how I got started. I've really enjoyed learning about many different areas of photography - I try to focus on something new each month (engagements, bridals, weddings, headshots, action, babies...) and this month I did a mini studio in my tiny little apartment. It was a little bit pathetic in our living area: I pushed back the couches, hung up sheets on the wall, and searched through my stuff to gather props.

Some of the results:

Baby Cameron and Brother








Baby Sebastian and Family








Baby Lydia






After the sorry attempt for a studio that week (even though the photos turned out nicely, I was still embarrassed to invite people in :D) Thomas and I moved to a 2 bedroom apartment in American Fork. I will be running a studio out of our second room. $50 sessions through the month of June! Feel free to contact me, as always, for more information. And I promise this one will look a little bit more professional :)

Emery

Emery

Emery is the most adorable kid I have ever seen (this will probably change once I have children of my own). We just went for a walk and took photos along the way. I never knew a scowl could be so cute! She kept running to the flowers or grass in order to rip off whatever she could to bring home to Mommy.





Unfortunately for Thomas and me, this wasn't just a normal photoshoot. I took Emery on a walk while her mother packed for the move. Our neighbors Brit and Aaron moved to Cedar City (and they took their Emery with them! sigh...) We will miss this family very much.




To see more photos of Emery, visit: the full gallery