Lifestyle photography

Oh blog, how I've missed you! I haven't had a spare second to post, even though I've been having a blast with fall photography. At this point I'm not taking any more sessions for the year, except I make exceptions for newborns and for my "Baby's First Year" clients. I'm also taking January off to try to rest and spend some time with my family. Then in February I'll be ready to go again!

As a photographer I haven't specialized in any certain sort of photography, even though it can be a good idea for your business in general to do that. One of my problems is that I honestly really enjoy lots of different sorts of photography! But I think it's a good idea for potential clients to know what I like. If you like what I like, that's the combination we want. :)

So with that in mind, I'm posting a recent family session. I do a lot of family sessions with small children. This is not always easy. (In fact I don't think it is ever EASY, exactly.) But it can always be a lot of fun. I prefer the lifestyle photography approach - I don't love formal posed photography, especially with small children. But as we start the session, I always try to get some nice semi-posed family portraits first. 

Here the older two kids were helping me to get the lighting right.


Then the whole family together.  (I LOVE a good grassy hill!)  The light was perfect on the day we did these.


Sometimes after we try to do something more posed, we have to run around a lot next.  These two were great at dancing together.  (Then I have to admit that they were rolling down the hill after that - I felt a little bad, but they didn't get too grassy, and the pictures were great!  One thing to know about me is that I don't do a great job of keeping your family clean when we go out on location.)








Then it was time to move to a new location.




After we have enough family portraits that I feel satisfied, we move on to other combinations. 




Usually I would have done baby portraits first after the family, but she kept sleeping instead.   (How darling is that?)




And after we've done everything we can think of, we look around for an opportunity to play!  We swung on the swings, had a big leaf fight, ran around, and finally ran out of time.  We had a lot of fun, and I love the pictures that we got in the end.