Inspiration

Very few artists have moved me the way this performer has. Her voice is incredible, her lyrics are inspiring, her talent is unmatched. She has only been in the music scene for a few years, and only really well known in the US since this year, and is EASILY my favorite artist of all time. I have the privilege of seeing her perform live here in Orlando in October. I paid a lot more than I should have for tickets… but I have to say that I’ve never been more excited about something in my life. Ok, the birth of my children and my marriage were pretty high up on the list. She’s just that good…

Enjoy!

Olivia – 12 Days Old

This morning I got to meet Olivia and her family. She arrived nice and sleepy (as they usually do since they’ve just had a ride in the car), so we got right to work. I could tell instantly that she was going to be fun to photograph. Just under 2 weeks old and she’s already developed quite the personality! She actually posed herself like this, and stayed that way for quite some time. It was hilarious, normally it takes a lot more work on my end to get them to pose, but Olivia was ready!

She woke up after I moved her from her comfortable position and tried to pose her in the next prop.

Don’t let this one fool you, she was actually awake, I just happened to catch a quick blink.

As I was going through the pictures to edit this one caught my daughter’s eye. She convinced me I just had to include it!

I have to say, one week really makes a difference in strength with newborns. I’m finding that once they reach the 2 week mark, they are considerably stronger than the week prior. Olivia was quite the kicker! She almost kicked her way off my bean bag chair, and I just couldn’t keep her little feet inside the cocoon.

Don’t let this one fool you either, it was just another blink.

After a while Olivia grew pretty tired of the posing. We knew right from the beginning that we wanted to get some family shots, so I went ahead and brought Dad in, and within seconds she had fallen asleep in his arms!

She was definitely happy with her daddy!

Thank you, Rebecca, for bringing your precious little Olivia over today. It was a pleasure to meet all of you and I hope to see you again soon!

The Late Coach Wenstrom’s Son – 14 Days Old

When I was contacted by Amanda Kern to collaborate on this photoshoot, I was more than happy to do so. After she shared with me the story of the sudden death of Jeff Wenstrom while his wife, Melissa, was pregnant with their son, I was even more excited to help out.

I was thrilled to meet Melissa and little JC, who at the time was 2 weeks old. I could tell immediately that they share a very special bond, and Melissa was just over-the-moon for her little boy!

Melissa shared a picture of her late husband, and I could see instantly how much little JC resembles his father.

He was so expressive during his photo session! He gave us so many curious looks, funny faces, and even a smile or two!

This little boy is ready to take on the world! He is definitely a mover, and at just 2 weeks old, he is definitely the strongest baby I’ve ever seen! We could barely keep him in all the props. He was fighting his way out of each one!

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Melissa and her family have been going through since the sudden passing of Jeff. But I could tell after meeting her just what a strong woman she is, and how blessed she is to have her son.

Baby Noah – 2 Weeks Old

Noah was probably one of most relaxed and happy babies I’ve had the pleasure to photograph, which is pretty evident by the BIG smile he gave me! That photo is definitely one of my favorites to date. How can you look at that smile and not feel happy? )

He also seemed very relaxed in these poses, which are some of the hardest to capture:

Of course I had to get a shot of the wrinkly newborn foot!

This is a shot I’ve been trying to achieve for a while, but most parents get very nervous. This was done with him hanging only about 4 inches away from a beanbag with Dad holding the cloth at the top:

He let us know when he was ready to wrap it up.

Many thanks to the family for coming out and letting me capture these memories for you! I’ll be seeing you soon for follow up pictures!

Claire – 4 Months

Baby Claire is back! I have the pleasure of photographing this darling angel every month, and it has been so amazing to watch her grow through pictures. Her mother recently told me she plans on getting a book done of my photography for Claire’s first birthday. They change so much every month during the first year that being able to chronicle that for this family through my photography has been a blessing for me. It’s so funny because it seems everyone I talk to “knows” Claire because of her pictures.

This session went by very smoothly. Claire was in a great mood and seemed ready for her close-up! Poor thing is teething though so she wanted to keep something in her mouth at all times, even if it meant trying to suck on my fabrics! As always, I had a blast with the family, and I can’t wait to see them again next month!

Baby Michael – 4 Days Old.

This morning I got to meet baby Michael and his family. At just 4 days old he is tied for the youngest newborn I’ve ever photographed. It’s rare that I get to photograph them so young, so I was delighted to get the opportunity. He was a very easy-going baby and even gave me a smile right away!

I got several poses in before he started getting fussy.

It only took a few minutes with Mom or Dad to get him calmed down and sleeping again. He was pretty mad at me for trying to get the popular “head in the hands” pose, so we decided to move on.

One of my favorite things about the hand-made props is when the tiny fingers and toes stick out, and I never miss the opportunity to photograph that.

We almost didn’t get this shot because little Michael was starting to get hungry and a little tired of taking pictures. But he was a trooper for the last few minutes!

It really was a pleasure to meet this young family and hear their story. I was amazed to learn that just 10 months ago they lost everything when their house burned down and they all barely escaped. Since then they’ve been trying to rebuild their lives, and in the midst of all that they had a new baby! They are an incredibly strong and admiral couple and I look forward to seeing them and their children again very soon!

Updates

It’s been quite some time since I’ve written so I thought I’d take a few minutes to update. I’ve been so busy since my foggy morning adventure! Let’s see, that was mid December. My parents came to town shortly after that, it was Christmas time, my son Aidan turned 5, we celebrated the new year, my birthday was January 3rd, I started back to school for the Spring semester, and all throughout that, I was doing photo shoots and working full time!

My goal with this blog was to write about each photo shoot as I did it, but that just hasn’t been happening. I’m going to try to be better about writing my experiences as they happen. I’ve done so many photo shoots in the past few months that it would take forever for me to get caught up, so you can see some of the highlights from most of those sessions on my flickr account.

I’ve met some great people, caught up with some old friends, and had a blast with every session. I’m extremely excited about what this year has in store for me and my family, and I look forward to sharing it with you all!

Erin

Foggy Morning

I had every intention of getting to work by 7 AM today. I left the house and was instantly struck by how foggy it was. I got about 2 miles down the road, turned around, ran in the house and grabbed my camera. First, I parked in a clearing next to my house less than 1/4 of a mile from a 4 lane road. I was completely surrounded by fog. I couldn’t even make out the cars driving by. It got boring pretty quickly, but I snapped this really quick:

There is a cemetery right around the corner. I’ve never been in there before but I figured at 6:45 in the morning, it would be deserted. I drove around for a bit and didn’t see anyone. I parked on the road and got out of my car. I started taking pictures of a tree and got approached by a groundskeeper (I guess) and was asked to leave. Ok, fine. But here’s the tree:

Then I drove the rest of the way to work. Nothing interesting down 17-92. But very nearby my office building are train tracks. So I parked at a church and walked to the tracks. Here are the shots I got:

I was wearing a skirt and heels and managed to scrape up my knees on those rocks and break a heel. But it was definitely worth it.

I also took some pictures from the 3rd story of my office:

I’m a huge fan of black and white photography, but I left that last one in color so you could see just how dreary it is outside. I almost didn’t need to turn any of them black and white.

Baby Sebastian 9 days old

What an experience! Sebastian was definitely a challenge, but certainly a cute one. As I was waiting for the family to arrive I snapped a few quick pictures of my newborn set-up. This is usually what I start with, then I’ll switch out back drops, flooring, etc. as the shoot goes on. Although for this particularly sunny day I closed the curtains once the session began.

Sebastian and his family came all the way from Clermont (an hour long drive), so we only got a few shots in before he was ready for a feeding.

He even gave me a few smiles!

But he very quickly grew tired of the pictures and he definitely let us know he was done.

After many tries, we were finally able to get him comfortable enough for a few more shots.

He was much happier when he was all curled up.

Sebastian’s parents were fantastic, and they let me try a pose I’ve been wanting to try for some time now. This one didn’t turn out exactly how I had pictures it, so I’ll try it again some other time.

I have to say, Sebastian was definitely the most challenging of all the newborns I’ve photographed. He seemed like he just wasn’t feeling very well. We had a very hard time getting him comfortable, so we just took the cue from him and decided to call it a day. We had planned on getting more shots, and then of course some family shots, but poor Sebastian just wasn’t having it. So, I’ll see the family again hopefully soon for another session when little Sebastian is feeling better. Thanks again guys for coming out, it was a pleasure!

Help-Portrait Event

Wow. I had such an amazing experience yesterday taking pictures with Help-Portrait. Help Portrait is a movement of photographers who used their time, equipment and expertise to give back to those who are less fortunate this Holiday Season. Photographers from around the world coordinated on or around 12/12/09 to give back to their communities.

I started the day at 8:30 AM with Amanda Kern. We spent close to an hour setting up equipment, coordinating with other photographers, and just figuring out how the day was going to go. This event had never been done before so it was a learning experience for all involved. Kayla Hernandez arrived (a fellow student from VCC) and we were also paired with Jim Hobart (who was an amazing help and wonderful at documenting the behind-the-scenes action). I can’t wait to see those pics and videos Jim!

Here’s Kayla waiting for our first session to begin.

Jim assisting with the diffusion of light on one of our subjects. One of the biggest challenges we faced that day was the changing light since we were outdoors all day. At all times there was someone either diffusing or reflecting light.

There were so many photographers who attended that we had some down time in between portraits to document the day. Here are a couple of random pictures I took during a slow period.

The local news came out in the morning and interviewed some residents of the shelter, some photographers, and members of the coalition.

Kayla was taking pictures of one of the families that was interviewed and the girls were so happy to be stars for the morning. Watching them posing for the cameras and seeing their faces light up was priceless.

There were make-up artists there as well to really pamper the participants.

And just some random pictures of photographers and our fearless coordinator Michael:

I won’t post the rest of the behind-the-scenes pictures as you can find them on Amanda Kern’s blog about the event, including pictures of me at the event.

I’m still waiting on more pictures from the event and I will post another blog including the pictures of the families I took that day. In the interest of privacy, we only post pictures of those that gave us written and verbal permission to do so.

The most amazing part of the day was getting to see the families’ reactions as the digital processors pulled up their pictures on the computer. I will never forget the families I was able to meet and help make these special memories for. This is what it’s all about. Growing up my family always picked “angels” from the local Christmas trees to send toys to. My Mom always expressed to me how important giving is. Well, I don’t have much money this Holiday Season, and this was the perfect way for me to give back to my community. And I have to tell you, being able to actually meet the people you’re helping is amazing. I came away from it so humbled. I can’t wait for the next event!