Luck. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad.

If you’re Stanford and it comes in the form of Andrew, then it’s good. VERY good! Looking forward to seeing him in action this weekend when we beat Oregon (Sorry, Dad!) Ack! A few lines in to this post and I’m already digressing. This blog isn’t about college football! That’s my other one. Yeah, right. Sorry. Let’s start over.

Luck. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad.

Heading in to last Friday’s photo session, our luck seemed bad. Terrible, in fact! While it rarely rains here in good ol’ Southern California, the two times this client and I have scheduled a session, we have had to battle RAIN! All day long, our phones were busy sending and receiving texts. Should we move forward? How’s it look over there? Is it sprinkling right now? Are there clouds? The sun’s peeking out here. What about over there? What’s the internet say about the next shower? How’s your schedule look next week? In the end, we decided to push forward … and as LUCK would have it, the rain clouds parted just long enough to squeeze in a session. In exchange for our faith and perseverance, the weather gods gave us gorgeous lighting to photograph this beautiful family.

K&T, your family is absolutely beautiful – inside and out! It was such a treasure to spend time with you guys and watch you guys interact with each other. You guys are playful, fun, adoring, sweet, successful, kind and loving. There’s something magnetic about your personalities that makes others want to spend time with you. Probably in the hopes that some of your charm and enthusiasm will rub off on them! Thanks for staying flexible amidst your busy and chaotic schedules and having a great attitude about everything (including the way our session ended!) I feel incredibly LUCKY to call you my clients, but more importantly, my friends.

Love to you both! Enjoy this peek at your photos.

This family portrait here isn’t my typical style. I thought I’d push myself and try something a little different. What do you think? I am loving it!

Have a great week!

They make it look easy.

Somehow this mother/father duo – both of ‘em, lawyers – manage to excel at their respective jobs, stay physically fit (Dad is super active in a soccer league and Mom continues her running/Pilates/fitness regimen without fail), remain social with friends and most importantly of all … having recently added another baby to the mix, they now find themselves raising two sweet and adorable little boys. These guys are naturals at the family thing. And while I know it’s not, they make the whole family/work/life balance thing look so easy. Mary, if only we could bottle up your “Superwoman Capabilities” and sell it like Bettheny Frankel sells her Skinnygirl Margaritas … we would have it made!!

Until I can figure out how to do that, I’ll stick to photography. And while I can’t bottle up your superwoman traits, I hope I manage to capture the essence of your family in these images. I hope that when your boys look at these photos down the road, they’ll see evidence of your love and devotion.

What a handsome, sweet, fun and silly little dude. Love him! Had so much fun playing with him.

This little guy has his Daddy’s mouth and smile. At five months old, this guy was a non-stop smiler! Adorable.

Love you guys! Will send out the pics of your Superfamily soon. xoxo

I know we barely have back-to-school to do lists behind us, but I’m here with a little public service announcement: It’s time to start thinking about and planning for holiday card season!

It seems early but honestly, it isn’t. There are only — get ready for this — 11 weekends until December rolls around. Those weekends are going to fly by, especially when you need to coordinate family schedules to squeeze in time for photos, select photos, order photos, shop for holiday cards, customize cards and then order, address and mail ‘em! (Wow I made this process sound fun, didn’t I?) Bottom line is that it wouldn’t hurt to get a jump start on your holiday cards.

Many of you know that I’ve been working with Tiny Prints for the past few years and many of my clients have used – and loved! – the end result. I can’t say enough good (fabulous! stellar! awesome! fantastic!) things about the company, its products and customer service. What I will do instead is recommend that all of you go check out their site and take a look at its new line of holiday cards. Click here for the newly launched line: Tiny Prints 2011 collection

For those of you with photos ready to go, take advantage of a great deal (20% off $99 or 25% off $199) if you order your cards before 9/20/2011. Use CODE: HOLIDAY11

And while you’re card shopping, pay attention to some of the images. You might just recognize some familiar faces throughout the collection. (And if you work with me, you never know … your lovely faces may show up in next year’s holiday collection, too! )

This clever little one cracks me up:

The photo came from this fun client photo session last year.

Happy Shopping!

Whenever we get together, there’s typically a glass of wine or a golf club in our hands. But not this weekend. (Well, not on Saturday at least … On Friday? Hmmmm, there may or may not have been some alcoholic drinks and golf clubs in the mix.) But the point is: On Saturday, I got to spend time with this couple in a new setting. With their kiddos. At the beach. And what a great time we had!

As soon as their feet hit the sand, the flip flops few off and this adorable family was off running around, playing tag and silly games, enjoying each other’s company in a gorgeous setting. I was just along for the ride, ready to capture the beauty of it all.

Some of my favorite moments are from afar. When I can’t hear what the family’s saying and when I have no idea what they’re about to do. But from their body language and laughter, I know that they are bonding and having fun. Just being themselves. Those are often the images that speak to me most and feel so special.

I know from experience that mom and dad are a fun loving couple. We always laugh and have a great time when we’re out. Always lots to talk about and so many things to share a laugh over. But what I really enjoyed on Saturday was having the opportunity to witness the adoration and affection these children have for their parents. It’s clear that there is no shortage of love in this family.

Witness a quiet moment shared between father and son:

Behold a lively moment between mother and daughter:

I had a tough time narrowing down my selections for the blog but in the end, I decided to leave you with this family shot. It took us several tries — the water was cold — but I hope you’ll agree the freezing feet were worth it!

So when I first introduced my special mini-session offerings last year, I was nervous. Would anyone be interested? Would anyone bite? Would my Facebook announcement sit there, looking lonely and without comments for one and all to see? (Yes, that is my typical worrywart thought process – the hope-for-the-best-but-prepare-for-the-worst mentality my mind often follows.) Fortunately, for me, this wonderful family snapped up my first slot! Within SIX minutes of me making the initial announcement! I was totally thrilled. I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow and danced a little jig. This little special might actually work! Hooray.

I love getting together with this wonderful family. And it’s especially fun and special for me to see a family with two brothers. I love to see how they poke, they prod, they giggle, they fight, they play. It gives me an idea of how my boys may act together five or six years down the road. And if my boys grow up to be anything remotely like these sweet, well mannered and playful boys, I will be thrilled.

Here are a few faves.

For the past three years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with this wonderful family. Not only do I love these sweet children, but I have a blast working with Mom and Dad. Mom, because she always has a very specific vision for her shoot (and the resulting output, whether it be in the form of a custom holiday card or canvas collage) and Dad, because he laughs and chills when Mom and I collaborate over every little detail – the placement of a bow, the size of a snowflake, the color of a border. It’s wonderful working with clients who put as much thought into a shoot as I do. It truly makes me feel honored when someone with a specific vision – and high expectations – will trust me to pull it off!!

This year, we went for a more formal, traditional, fancy, elegant feel. I think I was able to execute her vision while staying true to my personal style. Here are a few highlights:

So I’d never done a mini session before and I was nervous.

A lot of photographers offer them. But would *I* be able to pull ‘em off? Could *I* produce the quality and variety of photos I’ve come to expect from a viviZ session in just 15 minutes? (Fifteen minutes flies by, people!!) And with sessions lined up back to back to back to boot?

My nerves were jumping out of my skin and my stress level sky-high. I’m sure I was not all that pleasant to be around at home in the days leading up to it. (My husband may plead the fifth on that if you ask him.) Thank goodness my first session was with a repeat client (actually, most of them were). More importantly, the first session was with some fantastic friends who totally put me at ease. We had a great time and I knew, without even looking at the pics on the camera, that we had rocked the session. What a great way to kick off the first of eleven mini sessions!

PHOTOGRAPHER’S NOTE:
After I uploaded these photos to the post, something in that last photo made me realize that I had uploaded the proofs and not final ready-to-print versions. I thought I’d take the opportunity to point out one of the many things a professional photographer will do. (There are a ton of things, but this one is subtle yet still obvious to the untrained eye.)

On the above photo, which is cute in and of itself, you will notice (now that I point it out) that the little girl has one little crazy section of hair towards the top. In a best case scenario, the photographer will catch that and try to fix it. In a “realistic case scenario” when dealing with young children, the photographer is going to realize she’ll lose the natural smiles if she forces everyone to wait in order for her to muss with someone’s hair. So she’ll fire away, sacrificing the perfect in-camera shot.

Now I can’t always fix every problem. And I certainly try to get everything as perfect as possible in camera. But I am learning to improve my photoshop skills so I can take care of distracting elements like this to take the portrait to another level. Here’s the shot with the little girl’s hair “combed” oh-so-nicely! It’s a subtle edit, but one that really improves the quality of the photo.

When you submit your print order, I go through every selection with a virtual fine tooth comb (ha! pun intended) to take care of things like this, making sure you get the best possible output from your session!

ONE MORE NOTE:
It’s always fun to see how clients grow and change from year to year. Here’s the same family at the beach the previous summer, in August 2009.

Their smiles are contagious and their positive energy, infectious. You just can’t help but find yourself happy and upbeat when you’re around this awesome family. I was so happy to spend my Sunday evening with these guys, capturing a bit of their beauty and documenting a lot of their love.

Witness some of the beauty and love for yourself.

As much as I love the portraits above, I think my blog readers know that I actually prefer and love to document the candid moments like the ones below. The images where I can feel the love and the connection, where I can hear the giggles. Those are the ones that warm my heart and the images I love to produce for my clients.

Before I sign off, I just had to find a couple snaps to represent this little guy’s current obsession with his favorite character.

Here was Brek’s expression when Mario made his first magical and surprise appearance during our session. Love it!

Tiff and Scott, we did it! We finally pulled off the shoot and have some beautiful images to show for it. Hope you will feel that all the effort leading up to yesterday’s session paid off. I’ll be in touch soon!! xoxo

She’s got a sparkle in her eye and the warmest smile.
She’s friendly, energetic, playful and caring.
She can play red light/green light like the best of them and knows how to elicit the same sort of smiles and sparkles from her grandchildren!

It’s no wonder her family adores her and and rallied to organize such a thoughtful birthday gift for her: a custom photography session for her and her grandchildren and the extended family. What a treat it was for me to meet — and photograph — and play with — the extended family of this family. And seriously, what an awesome gift! No trinkets or knick-knacks, no gift receipts and things to return. Just a quick afternoon with me and then later, some great portraits to document her beautiful family and the sweet relationships she has with the various family members.

We met up in Santa Barbara late Sunday evening and captured some fantastic images. It was tough deciding what to blog, but I picked an assortment of images to give you an idea of the fun and beauty we were able to freeze in time.

We weren’t quite ready to begin but these little cousins were eager to start snapping away. They had to beg and plead to have me take their photos. (You can tell that’s sarcastic, right? I was clearly ecstatic to have such gorgeous and willing models!)

We knocked out the family photo first while everyone was fresh, relaxed and happy. (Might that have anything to do with that afternoon’s wine tasting excursion??)

We loosened up and had fun with our portraits, capturing some stuff like this.

The grandkids had a ball playing with Grandma on the large, expansive lawn.

There was lots of laughter that afternoon.

Then a fun and casual shot with Grandma and all her grandsons.

Last, but not least, we have Grandma with the baby and all the girls, including her own mother (the Great-Grandma). Great-Grandma was in incredible shape!!

I have a feeling it’s going to be tough for Grandma to decide which images to print … this preview is just the tip of the iceberg. Lots more to come. Happy Birthday, Judy!!!

I felt right at home when I met my new clients on Friday. Not only were mom and dad absolutely down to earth, friendly and relaxed but my very first conversations with the boys (ages three and six) revolved around Luke Skywalker, Stormtroopers and Padawan training. Anyone that knows me and my family can attest to the fact that 90% of the conversations in my own household revolve around Star Wars characters and trivia. So like I said, I felt right at home.

Boys and jedi knights aside now, I should mention that the impetus for that day’s session was actually the recent arrival of a new little family member. She was born about a month ago and when mom realized how quickly the days and weeks were passing by, she called me up (thanks to a referral from this awesome family) and asked if we could schedule something asap. We coordinated calendars and in a few short days, we met up and documented the little babe at five weeks young.

We begin with a smile.

Now get ready for some adorable baby blues and some silky smooth, doll-like newborn skin. There’s nothing like newborn baby skin, is there?

Look at the dimples.

Mommy and daughter spend some time together.

Sweet big brothers surround baby sis with some love and kisses.

Daddy and daughter have a little heart to heart here.

Little fingers.

And last but not least, a little quiet-time and snuggle.

Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse into life at home with this awesome family. S&J, enjoy your first peek! I’ll look forward to scheduling a playdate for our boys soon.