The story of the birthday portraits - {Albuquerque baby photography}

Sometimes sessions have a narrative that is so fun to tell. Here is my good friend's daughter - she is just one year old and couldn't be cuter. She is so happy and funny, and loves her brother and sisters. I've done a few portraits of her & it has always been quick & easy & fun. This time it was fun too, but this time the smiles took a little coaxing!

We started off by the flowers, thinking we could do some pretty pictures there. Nothing doing - she didn't like the grass, or something about sitting there did not work for her... it was no good. :)


Okay, no problem, we moved over away from the grass, and tried to be extra funny. No way! Look at that sad face.


So when you're doing baby pictures with me and things aren't going well, the next thing I start to say is something about how I like to include the mom (or dad) in the pictures too! These next faces totally crack me up - she wasn't born yesterday and she wasn't going to be happy just like that!




BUT, her big brother was also here, and he came to the rescue. He ran and jumped and did all sorts of funny tricks with puppets, and eventually we won her over. She got happier & happier.


Eventually she was happy even sitting by herself.


What a gorgeous smile!


And then once we had a whole bunch of beautiful smiling pictures, we brought out the cake. I love that 4th babies don't have to wait until they're 3 years old to get treats :) - she was already a cake expert. And cake made her very happy! This was a special piece of cake that her nana had made. She dove right in! And I can't resist taking (and posting, obviously) a LOT of cake pictures.














She finished the cake off entirely, which is a first for me with birthday cake pictures. :) Of course we usually start with a whole (small) cake, not just a slice. But still it was pretty impressive eating. Great job, baby!


Usually cake sessions end when the baby is d-o-n-e with having sticky fingers - in fact they tend to end in a few tears. This little girl did not mind at all - she was nothing but happy.

So from a tricky beginning to a very happy end - sometimes it's so good to have the baby's siblings come! And sometimes cake can make a baby very happy (incidentally, sometimes it makes a baby very sad instead).