Once upon a beautiful late summer evening...

I am so happy that this family took me up on my sunflower portrait idea! I've never seen such gorgeous sunflowers as there were blooming this year in the bosque. Even in the arroyos near our house the sunflowers were kind of amazing, but there were fields of them in the bosque.

We began in the parking lot with mosquito repellant - very important (and not quite sufficient to ward them all off). This family is one of those happy and fun families that is a joy to be around. Their kids were amazingly cooperative, they had entertaining ideas, and even a couple of jokes for me.


Somewhere back in my blog I have pictures of this darling little girl when she was a baby. It's so amazing to see her grow up! She has a sunny personality that is perfect with the light and the flowers.




Family hug pictures are always some of my favorites.


Just off the river we found these great old trees and tall fluffy grass.


Fun logs like this are so perfect for kids to play on for pictures! So much so that the next day we did our family pictures here too.




Little sister liked to climb up as high as possible! Big brother played it safe down low,


though he did humor us with one or two high pictures with his adventurous sister.


How darling are these two together? Sometimes I jokingly ask kids to kiss for a picture - obviously if they are older than three or four, they don't want to do it. These guys at least thought it was funny!






This guy totally cracked me up. He liked to sneak in for the lips kiss instead of a kiss on the cheek. What a sweet thing to be a little relentless about.




After the sun went down we took a couple more pictures with lighting that I especially love. I wasn't sorry to say goodnight to the mosquitoes, but everything else about the evening was perfect!


If you also love the Rio Grande, I'd love to meet you there for a family or child photography session! Give me a call or email and we can chat about a session for you or your family. Or if you'd like to see other options, I have lots of other location ideas for portrait sessions here.

The saga of our own family portraits

I used to do family portraits with my family every year on Mother's Day. And it was kind of a big deal. It's not everyone's favorite way to spend time, but they humored me because they love me, and - Mother's Day. And then last year... we just never did it! This year I was determined to do our family portraits FOR SURE, but then my daughter and I came up with a complicated theme with vintage clothes. I loved the idea, but sewing sometimes takes a back seat when things get busy, and our usual portrait date of Mother's Day came and went. Several months later, my daughter told me that she wouldn't go in the river if it got too cold, and the river was an important part of what we wanted... so we sewed up a storm and managed to get our family portraits done in beautiful September weather.

As usual, it was kind of a big deal. We left too late one evening, then I forgot my remote trigger, and we ended up running out of light by the time we waded out to the sand bar that we liked. The only pictures that I got that I loved were the ones with the sunflowers, which were so gorgeous.


My awesome husband said that we could try it AGAIN the next week, which ended up being perfect.

Even though he hates wearing suspenders. (Thank you!)

And thanks to my kids, they were awesome too.

On our second trip out to the river, we stopped along the way to take some pictures with these fun logs and the soft yellow grass.






Some people in my family can keep a serious face. Some others have kind of a hard time.


Everyone had lots of ideas about how to use the logs for a picture. My son has decided to be Tom Sawyer for Halloween, he loves this shot so much.




My oldest likes the serious pictures so much that her dad had to tell a bunch of silly cow jokes to get a smile.




Our youngest loves to be in pictures and will cooperate at any time, any place. She did want to climb up as high as possible first.




As we finished up with the logs, it started to rain. Naturally. Because normally how many rainy days do we get in September? (Some years - zero.) We headed for the bridge to stay dry, and my husband pointed out that my camera could stay under cover under the bridge while we took the family shot that I really wanted. It was actually raining in all the family shots, but THIS WAS THE EVENING and we were not going to dress up and hike out to the river again.


I love how the mountain coordinated with our color scheme!


The sisters picture is really what I wanted the most. I love these so much. Well, these and the sunflower picture.






My youngest was probably the happiest to be in the water. As you can see, she got all the way in.






"Sorry Mom, I fell..."


Also having so much fun in the water, even though he, like his dad, hates wearing suspenders (so cute!).






My oldest is so sweet and fun-loving that I wasn't in the mood for lots of serious pictures. She is always so good to cooperate with my photography whims and ideas - I'm so grateful for her!






If you also love the Rio Grande, I'd love to meet you there for a family or child photography session! Give me a call or email and we can chat about a session for you or your family. Or if you'd like to see other options, I have lots of other location ideas for portrait sessions here.

From alarm failure to perfection, all in one morning

I had the greatest morning with this family, who I am honored to say that I have been photographing since their daughter was a baby (thank you!). But it started in a unique and funny (now it's funny anyway) way - a few minutes before I was going to leave to drive to their session, I got a phone call. Their alarm had failed and they were just waking up. Who hasn't this happened to??? Nobody, right? But I admit it could be a little panic-inducing on a morning that you'd scheduled for your family photography session.

NO PROBLEM. My morning was a little flexible, and they were up for the challenge! We met a little later at the Botanic Gardens, they looked awesome, and were totally up for some fun. They did not act frazzled like I surely would have, I was very impressed.

And if there was ever a fun location for a family photography session in Albuquerque, it's the Botanic Gardens. It's much too large to take photos everywhere, so I like to pick two or three areas and not drag my families all over the park until they are exhausted. This time the absolutely best part was the Heritage Farm at the back!


When I saw the morning glories I think my eyes bugged out a little. We grow morning glories in our yard too (too many of them, they are definitely considered a weed around here) but only white. The blue flowers are so beautiful!




The animals were great fun also. They have a new cow since I was there last, some sheep, and the big horses.




I haven't been there for awhile and this was the first time I'd seen the turkeys. They actually say "gobble gobble gobble".


The flowers on the way back to the farm are so gorgeous that they almost look unreal in the photographs. I grow these flowers in my garden too, but they grow so many more!


Their daughter could not have been more darling. We kept things moving pretty quickly and she stayed happy to play and pose for such a long time!




It was not too crowded, the and the sun was surprisingly mellow, so she ran down the paths,


climbed up and down the stairs,


and was heart-meltingly sweet with her mom and dad.










We finished up with one more family portrait and a few of just Mom and Dad together that I love.


I'm so glad that this amazing family was able to get through their whirlwind morning and meet me for portraits. Thank you!

If you also love the Botanic Gardens, I'd love to meet you there for a family or child photography session! Give me a call or email and we can chat about a session for you or your family. Or if you'd like to see other options, I have lots of other location ideas for portrait sessions here.