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So seriously, what’s spring say to you? To me it’s all about the new life and a whole lotta rain. (I suppose it takes the whole lotta rain to bring us that new life, right? I try to remind myself that on the gloomy days!)
I’m sorry for no post last week, I got sidetracked by some massive projects. (Namely going through my attrociously large To-Be-Read pile of books. You just don’t want to know how badly it fought with me. I won! Yeah. That’s my story.) That said, I did actually go shooting last week, but alas… I can share nothing with you for several weeks. Not even a sneak peek!
I know. No fair. Tell me about it. Because I can tell you now, there was this one great shot… and then this other…
It’ll all make sense. Later. When I can share. I need to go through those photos and see if I need to go shoot some more. (Bah, who am I kidding? I’ll be there again on Friday. Who thinks I’ll probably end up going early to shoot some more? Yeah, there’s a distinct possibility! I’m under a super time constraint, so we’ll see.)
To make up for the taking pictures and not even a sneak peek to give… I wrapped up those adorable pictures of Baby Lillian. Now you guys all have to know… this girl owns me. Like seriously. She is in firm control of me and she knows it. I’m madly in love with her, so I took way lots of photos even though she was grumpy at the rainy yucky day.
So you wanna see? All right! Me, too! (Because really? I went through her photos FOUR times because I just couldn’t get enough looking at her! You can say it now…” SUCKER!!!!!!”)
See, this is the proof right here… she’s saying to me, “Really? I mean, really???!!! IT IS COLD AND WET OUT HERE! But you know I’m still cute!”
“What’s that clickie box for? Oh me? OK, well I suppose I can be cute, but really, you are AWFULLY demanding!”
So I love that picture. Words just can’t begin to describe how much I love it. I just do. Almost as much as I love this sweet little girl!
To help cheer her up, we let her get some playtime with Mommy. You probably remember mommy… I dubbed her a Goddess. Just so you know? She is one. How did I get to be friends with her? I’m just THAT lucky. But, not as lucky as Baby Lillian who has a Goddess for a mommy!
As you can tell, Lillian loves some Mommy-daughter play time!
We tried the backyard, but mostly Lillian wanted to look at her mommy! Isn’t this just sweet?
I really love it when children and parents interact. There’s just something about it that touches my heart. Insert your “awww” right there. I’m such a sap!
This is a girl with a lot on her mind… I’d love to hear what you think is going through that cute little head of Lillians!
Now it just has to be said… I think this is the funniest picture. Maybe she needs some extra fiber in her diet? Somehow I think that’s the wrong kind of fiber, Lillian!
And just because we need to end on a super sweet rot your teeth out picture:
Lillian? I LOVE YOU! I can’t wait to see you again for your 1st birthday! This time? We will WAIT for NO RAIN! I promise!
Meanwhile, for all the rest of you… I’m a little busy over the next week. There might be pictures. There be pictures of twins. There might be pictures of a castle. Maybe there will be pictures soon from last week. You might want to stay tuned… especially in case there might be twin photos. Because hello… twins are like DOUBLE THE CUTE!
–Have Camera, Will Travel (To a previously unmentioned secret destination you’ll just have to wait to find out about!)
JS
Wow, time flies! Remember that adorable little baby Lillian? You saw her pictures as a new little baby, you saw her get baptized, and now? You get to see her as a big grown up eight month old girl!
She sits, she grabs, she even inchworm crawls around! Now, I gotta say that I might be a *tad* partial here, but I think she’s just about the prettiest little eight month old girl in the whole wide world.
I promised her mom a sneak peek and so here I am to share. I looked at the photos and there’s some real winners in there. Which is pretty good because I swear our photo shoots are doomed. It is always raining! What gives? We tried our hardest this time, we really did. We DID manage to get some sunlight, but the wind chilled us and the ground was still damp from the rain early last week. Darned spring weather!
We ended up inside, again. It’s OK because I got to see Lillian’s darling room and then I saw she’s a girl after my own heart. I gotta say… I feel ya, Lillian! She’s only eight months old and already she wants to devour books!
 I'm not sure who's hungrier, Lillian or that catepillar! I gotta say, that’s my favourite photo. I’m a book worm and she’s rocking the cuteness clothes. So really? Can’t get much better. I know, I know… nerd photographer alert. Leave me alone!
Now, just because I felt the need to be self indulgent with that, I’ve got a BONUS sneak peek for you guys! Seriously this photo made me go “Awww beautiful!” Really. Does my friend look like she had a baby eight months ago? NO! She’s the Weight Watchers Goddess as far as I’m concerned. And check out her beautiful baby!
 Lillian and her mom - two beautiful women that I love! Can you tell that she’s a great mom? And how about Lillian? I totally want to gobble her up she’s so sweet!!!
Lillian, I love you so much and can’t wait to post the rest of your photos because you are a queen of cute!
So there you have a sneak peek. I still can’t believe how big Lillian is now! I’ll be posting the rest of the photos, but first I have a vacation for the Easter holiday. Yay for time away. Though I plan to take the Mac to do some photo editing while away since I have a wedding next week!
–Have Camera, Will Travel (Especially for beautiful babies!)
JS
So let’s get serious here for a minute. What is the best thing I get to do as a photographer????
Yeah, that’s right! PLAYING WITH BABIES!
You know you are jealous! That’s me, which is why it is such an ugly photo! And I’m playing with Baby Lillian who is the cutest little baby girl in Reston. I’m not prejudiced or anything, right? Of course, she’s the reedeming quality of that photo. But hey, I got to play with a baby so I HAD to share!
I know, you don’t want to see me playing with babies. You want to see babies! It’s why you came, right? To check out interesting photos – and today those photos are BABY PHOTOS!
You heard it here from the horse’s mouth though. I <3 babies. I love the way they look. I love the way they smell. (Except those stinky diapers – then they go back to mom!) I love how snuggly they are! I love their little fat rolls!
I love Lynne and am so glad I met her. She’s been a great friend, she helped me buy my house, and she’s just a lot of fun to hang around. Watching her with the newest member of her family is such a treat for me! And can you even question why?
Just look at that precious little face!!! Who couldn’t love baby Lillian?
Lynne is such a great mother! This is pretty much what it is like when I am with her! She’s so attentive and in tune with Lillian and yet she’s still able to handle Micah the cutest boy in Reston!
When Lillian fell asleep my hart melted! Too cute! But, I had to take advantage of the still moments!
Ahh, then she woke up. Do you think she’s trying to tell me to go bye-bye and stop with the clicky box and the bright light in this next picture?
Seriously though, this is my FAVOURITE picture of the whole morning!
I’m not sure what she was dreaming about, but it must have been a good one to strike that pose!
To see more photos, check out Baby Lillian’s <a href=”http://emeraldlens.info/?page_id=60&album=1&gallery=26″>proof album!</a>
And just because it’s not a day at Lynne’s without a picture of Micah – check this boy out at the 50’s Diner doing what he does best – BEING CUTE!
–Have Camera, Will Travel
JS
PS – Hopefully the next time I’m up that way the weather and life will be more in lines with our plans to photog babies! Of course the next planned trip is for Baby L’s baptism on October 18th! I’ve never shot photos of that sort of thing so it should be interesting!
OK, so I gotta say one thing. You cannot get too many cute kid photos. It just isn’t possible. Trust me, I’ve been photographing my own cute kids for almost 13 years. (Egads, how did I get so old? Seriously. I must have had my first one when I was like 7. Only explaination, right?)
When talking about cute kids that aren’t my own… well… who do you think? We’re right back to little Davey. That’s right, I was supposed to be taking engagement photos for Aaron and Tara, but oh no. I had to shoot pictures of their little boy, Davey. Why?
That’s right. Cause he’s darn cute!
I asked Aaron, is Davey going to be in your wedding party? He said, No way! I’d get upstaged.
He was right. I mean look at this kid!
This kid is definitely too cute for words and absolutely capable of distracting the world with said cuteness.
There should be a crime against being this cute.
Of course I had to take a picture of him going down the slide… I mean how cute is a kid going down the slide? Oh yeah, this cute:
And one final photo:
Was that enough cuteness? I’m telling you that I’m not so sure this post was safe for work. Or home.
Now I’m going to make a shameless wish here, and hopefully his parents will see it. I really want to become this kid’s photographer. When Aaron adopts Davey, I want to be there. When Davey goes to school, I want to be there. When Davey graduates 8th grade… you guessed it… I want to be there. I love this kid and he just makes me melt!
–Have Camera, Will Travel
JS
My friend from Church has two great kids and asked me to come do a surprise shoot for her husband. Now this is where it got real fun. Their daughter didn’t get her birthday photos, plus we thought it would be great to shoot the kids in his uniforms. Of course, that meant making sure we actually HAD his uniforms.
You see, daddy’s a cop! So you can just imagine the phone conversation:
Wife: Honey, when are you going to go to work on Friday?
Husband: Um, noon.
Wife: Yeah, why don’t you go to the gym first… leave around 10?
Husband: Um, ok….
Wife: Oh and I need one of your uniform shirts… and your extra badge…
Yeah, the boys at work probably had a FIELD day with that one!!! I’m still snickering over it!
We used the neighbour’s back yard and I started off with just some shots of little Sophie:
Then I took some shots of her and her brother together:
Devin then started to put on the uniform, and I got a few pictures of Sophie playingin the grass while her brother dressed:
The kids had a lot of fun in the uniforms, though it took a few minutes to get Devin on board. Pretty much I took this photo and showed it to him and then he was ready to roll with it:
Oh yeah… they were awesome! He started going on about he be rappin’! This is why I love working with kids! They are so fun!
We did get a picture with mom in the photo – she’s wearing dad’s Gator’s jersey. Let’s hear it for Gator’s fans!
With having the badge… I just felt we had to play with it. Stop! In the name of the law!
I had a total blast with this photo shoot and want to thank Devin and Sophie for having some fun with me! And Devin, you better believe I remember you asked for some rapper photos!!!
–Have Camera, Will Travel
JS
My kids tend to be my test subjects for weird photo ideas or new photo plans. Lucky for me, they roll with it. It’s good for me because I like to shoot pictures of them. Ok, and it gives me great practice for days like today where I got to go take photographs of two kids. Wait till you see THOSE pictures. Watch for them next week. Let’s just say: Dad’s uniforms for a little dress up fun!
Back to my kids, though. I got a recent photography magazine in the mail and it was talking about senior portraits. End of the school year brings those into play. I don’t know about you, but when I was in school we had two choices. Get the crummy school photographer take boring pictures of us in that drape thingy (I’m a girl… what did they use for the guys? Was that a full suit jacket and shirt?) or spend fat stacks of cash and get creative photos where we could make them very personal.
I opted for Plan B. At the time I was still an active dancer so I chose to wear my ballet black and pink with a dance skirt and my toe shoes. I loved those photos. They were the first photos in 17 years that I thought were not only decent, but showed who I was.
Probably why I like to use a more photojournalistic style today. I like to capture the heart of my subjects rather than use stiff poses.
Well, we hopped into the van to go somewhere and I chucked the magazine at the kids in the backseat. I told them to look through and if they saw anything they liked, to let me know. I’d use them for some summer portraits to practice the whole “senior” thing.
Joram saw some person on a swing and loved it. He asked if I would do that for him. Sure, I said.
I know you guys are avid fans of my blog, right? So you saw my little niece of cuteness on the swing at my inlaws? Well you guessed right, I took care of photographing Joram on the same swing!
Doesn’t he look like he’s having fun? He’s already asked for prints for his bedroom. I think it’s time to seriously contemplate what to do to decorate that room. Hey, I have a start!
Joram’s also become our little lawn mower. We only have a push mower so that involves some whining, but Pop-Pop is cool with a riding mower. Joram was tickled to mow the front lawn. Wearing the lawn hat was a great bonus. The light was a bit harsh when the photo was taken plus it just doesn’t seem quite right to me that he’s old enough for such a task – which I tried to capture with the camera. That, and the love he had of this chore.
So there you have a little more insight into our lives and some pictures of my kids to tide you over until next week. I’ve got some great posts coming up! Until then have a great 4th of July if you are in America, otherwise just have a great weekend!
–Have Camera, Will Travel
JS
I love photographing kids being so full of life! There’s nothing like their exuberance and zeal!
While in New Jersey for my brother-in-law’s wedding, I photographed my little niece playing. My father-in-law has a large tree that someone tied a fire hose to for a swing. All the kids love to be pushed, climb up a limb and jump off, and other such daredevil kid activities.
My boys went out and pushed her for a while and I thought it was a great chance to get some photographs for her parents.
After getting off the swing, she started dancing around the yard. I loved it!
Kids have the most amazing faces. They just glow and their eyes sparkle and I love that they all look like little happy cherubs!
Things I learned about Mackenzie this weekend is that she’s got an adorable little voice, she’s a smart little gal, she loves unicorns, and she thinks my chihuahua is a fantastic dog! I hope we can see her again soon. Her mom loved the photos and I really look forward to printing some up. Maybe I’ll hand deliver them so I can spend more time with Mackenzie! I better take the dog along for the ride though!
–Have Camera, Will Travel
JS
I went to visit my good friend because she’s miserable on bed rest with her pregnancy. Remembering that vividly, even after all these years, I figured she could use some company as well as distraction for her little boy.
We piled in the car and away we went. Now, you should know me well enough by now to realize… where I go, my camera goes as well. After all, my motto is what? You guys are really catching on!
No photos were planned, I just figured I would see what happened. When you are talking little kids, it really is being there at the right time with your camera ready to go. We’d kick ourselves in the pants if I had not brought the camera and kept it at the ready. Sure as the sun rises in the morning… her little boy was filled with all kinds of cute spunk.
I will warn you. The photos that follow are very graphically cute. If you are sensitive to such things… stop now. Proceed at your own risk!
First, he wanted to play ball. This kid comes from a huge baseball loving family. So out we traipsed into the hot front yard.
So, he really likes baseball. He also really likes hats. Why not use a mitt as a hat?
You can’t have summer boy fun without some rolling around in the grass!
But, we’re still playing ball!
My kids had a lot of fun playing with my friend’s son. Thankfully for me, they don’t really care too much about age differences. They just fell right into playing ball with the wild abandon that comes with boyhood!
Now I just love this next one because it is exactly how I always think of her son.
Don’t you love the carefree joy you see in a child’s face? They are rarely still long enough to blink before they are off on their next adventure. They just sparkle and giggle and it brings a smile to my face.
This last photo I took because her son just absolutely cracks me up. She has a food blog and she recounted the story of making a salad with him. Pretty much it went something like this: She set out peas and he said, “Peas? I love peas!” Then ate about half of them. She set out cucumbers and he said, “Cucumbers? I love cucumbers!” Yup, ate like half of them. Rinse and repeat for radishes. She finally scurried him out of the kitchen so she could finish dinner (and hopefully have some salad for Mommy and Daddy!) Guess what we had for lunch? Yup, salad. I got to see him in action! Let me tell you, she wasn’t kidding. The kid was sneaking cucumbers and peas!
After we go the salad done and the table set I decided to take a picture of him with the giant salad bowl in front of him. The bowl’s nearly as big as him! You can see him trying to eye into that thing. I’ll bet you anything he was trying to figure out how to sneak more peas! My thought was maybe she could use this on her blog.
All in all it was a fun day filled with much cuteness. As well it should be when you hang out with an almost three year old!
–Have Camera, Will Travel
JS
PS: EDIT: As you can see, I’m working on a new way to do my photos. I’ve also managed to fix a snafu I was having with the site. Expect more photos now!!
I never really debuted the Spring photos of my kids. Not officially, at any rate.
What I love about my kids is they have come to know – Mom just takes photos. Of everything. Anytime I see something new, I make the kids let me try it out. Seeing as though they put me through a lot… I feel I should at least give them some options for their portraits from time to time.
This spring we chose to photograph music in the making, our new yard, and reading. Three passions that the boys enjoy tremendously!
The most important member of our family insisted that he be posted first. Considering he rules the house, I decided it was better to give in, lest he go for the ankles. I’m sure he’d take the time away from stalking his nemesis, the Evil Racoon, to teach me a lesson in disobedience!
Nephi is fierce. Nephi is a great Chihuahua Warrior. Fear him. Then scratch his ears and praise his bravery!
I chose to use Caramon’s reading photo because I loved the lighting. It has nothing to do with his choice of reading material… not at all. After all, I don’t have a thing for the Oz series do I? Pay no attention to the name on my license plate…
Joram’s come a long way with his guitar and I’m proud of him. For that matter, Caramon and I have gotten better as well. The new keyboard plan seems to work wonders for encouraging practice there, too. I got this picture of Joram strumming on his guitar and loved it.
Finally, I managed to grab a shot of the boys with Nephi for school in the front yard. We LOVE school outside!
We’ve done a lot of kitchen learning lately. We can’t neglect a photo that expresses the experience so perfectly:
Any time we’re in the kitchen, there’s Nephi. And he practically shakes at the anticipation of fallen foodstuffs. A slight blur of constant motion, he’s begging, showing off his big puppy dog eyes, or sniffing around for droppings.
I love my boys. I love taking photos to see how they grow and change constantly. They are the highlight of my life. Next to photography, of course!
–Have Camera, Will Travel
JS
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My Upcoming Schedule Shoots:
*Sadness... no upcoming travel!*
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