Birthday cake smash sessions - inside and outside, messy and not so messy.

What's my favorite age for baby sessions? Okay, there's no way I can choose. :) BUT - I do love a good cake smash session! One year old sessions are especially fun, because you get a really good combination of laughs and giggles, more formal portraits, and piles of messy cake. One year olds are also at a really happy age for portraits - it's easier to hold their attention than it will be in another few months.

Today I have two recent birthday cake smash sessions to share.  One is inside, a studio session, and one is outside at a park.  Both turned out beautifully and it's fun to see the differences in how they work.

This little princess came for birthday portraits, and I was blown away at how gorgeously striking she is.(I remember when she was just born...) :)


She was a little serious for me, but her mom and grandma and I worked really hard to get some smiles.





I so love babies in tutus with beads!  I know I have some like this with my daughter... from quite a few years ago!  (It goes so fast!)






 She liked the taste of the cake, but she did NOT like sticky frosting on her fingers!  (My kids were the same.) 


So she was much happier after her mom wiped her fingers clean. 


It was yummy, but she was ready to be done before long.


And sometimes some playtime in my back yard goes over really well when cake doesn't. 


I met this little guy at a park in the evening light - which was absolutely gorgeous, I left vowing to do more evening sessions!



He was so happy and funny.  He did keep trying to eat sticks, etc., but he was good-natured about putting them back down.




I love the stairs at this park.  He did too.


In fact he really liked crawling up the stairs.  We did some chasing. :)


He did like the cake!  And he certainly didn't mind having sticky fingers.  







I think his mom had some work to do when she got him home.  But we all had a great time, and he was such a happy guy that we were done with everything in well under an hour.  What a fun way to spend an evening!

 If you are interested in a cake smash session for your baby, please give me a call!  I have more examples posted here, or you can look through the cake tag on my blog here.  I'd love to talk about setting something like this up with you too!

I have a bunch more baby photography, along with some info on my baby plan options, on this blog page - check it out!

I offer four different options for baby photography collections. If you are interested for yourself, or if you have a friend or family member you might like to gift a collection to, I have an online magazine with more information that you might like to see. You can send me your email address below and I will email you a link right away.

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18 month old photography - keeping it real.

I love baby photography. And I love child photography. In between babies & children - the 18 month old and 2 year old age range - yes, I love that too. But!   I have been known to tell people that this age range is the toughest to photograph. (Maybe another contender could be 15 year old boys. Which is because of their comfort factor, not because I don't like them!) 

18 month olds, two year olds - they are fast, and they don't sit still for a camera. They aren't particularly susceptible to bribes. And if you try to make them do anything against their desires, they cry. I can confidently say that most parents of this age of child have enough memories of their child crying - they don't need me to preserve them forever. This presents a challenge to a photographer! :)

So the trick is to take their picture somewhere photogenic-ish, where they are happy, and where it doesn't matter if they're also on the move.  This is potentially possible in a studio, but sometimes it is more successful at a park or somewhere fun, where there is lots of room.

This park is down the street from my house.  It's busy and fun, and I like that it has a pond.

One thing that it's important for parents of this age of child to know is that realistically, their child is going to spend 99% of their time at the park with me running around.  I will chase them, try to get them to play peek-a-boo with me, try to help them want to slide down the slide with the best light, and hope that they want to swing.  But the odds of them sitting nicely on a bench and smiling are... low.  It's all about action shots!


But it's pretty likely that life with your 2 year old is all about action, right?  We want to capture your real life, right? :)  Perfect.






This little guy's dad really likes the high-key look (which means the background is all white).  So we started out at the park and then swung by my house for a few studio portraits.  Keeping it real - he was NOT happy.  The attention span for portraits at this age is very. short.  We had already exceeded it.  So we did every funny thing we could think of, at a frantic pace, and eventually he laughed and smiled for about 15 seconds.  Got it! :)


I hope this little guy got a treat after we were done - he earned it!  It's hard work having everyone focused on you & you alone for an hour.  Isn't he darling?

If you have a child this age and would like portraits of him or her, I would love to meet you guys!  It can take patience and I feel like that is really one of my strengths.  I have more samples of my child photography here - please contact me to set up an appointment!