A few weekends ago, I had the pleasure of snuggling the most adorable little baby girl. She’s the newest addition to a family near and dear to our heart. The father in this family and my husband go back many years, having gone to Loyola High School together. Throughout the years, these guys have stood next to each other throughout many of life’s greatest milestones. The best ones being him adding all these fabulous girls to his family – first his wife, then their first daughter and now, baby sis.

This little one’s got the best cheeks (I just want to eat ‘em up!) and cute little rolls, reminding me so much of her older sister when her sis was that age. Just a few I wanted to share of Baby Kaia.

Kaia, in an outfit from her auntie. This should make auntie smile, yes?

Here are the two sisters, side by side, both of them at four months old:

And here’s big sister today:

She’s grown up so much! You can see pics of her at eight weeks, four months and six months. (Looks like I forgot to blog her one year pics.)

M & JJ, enjoy your sweet girls at this precious stage! Erich and I look forward to celebrating the girls’ milestones throughout their lifetimes as well. xoxo

I’m headed out the door for a family roadtrip. A much needed vacation and quality family time!! Before I left, I had to post at least one shot from yesterday’s session with my little O’Connor twins. I know Mom is anxious to see what we got so I’m making sure to post something to appease her curiosity. And if you check out the twins’ site, you might notice how a lot of images from our last session were put to creative use.

Check ‘em out. You can’t even tell that we were braving 100 degree weather here! These girls are definitely professionals.

I’ll be back to post more next week. But for now, I better run. I think my husband, kid and dad are all sitting in the car, hollering for me to, “Hurry Up!”

Have a great weekend, everyone.

One of the things I love most about having a boutique photography business is the time it affords me to spend with each client. In order to be a successful photographer (or actually any sort of business person), I believe it’s critically important to understand my clients’ personalities, goals and expectations. There is so much more to being a photographer than having “a good camera” and “clicking the shutter.” In addition to the actual session time, I enjoy the pre-session consultation as well as the post-session interaction. My goal is to provide an end-to-end enjoyable and fun, relaxed yet professional customer experience. I truly enjoy working with all my clients, understanding their needs and sharing my expertise and guidance to make sure they receive the perfect product output whether it be in the form of framed portraits, coffee table albums or head shot portfolios to name a few items.

For those of you on Facebook, you may remember me mentioning a special wall display I recently created with a fabulous client of mine. We spent a great deal of time collaborating and the end result was phenomenal! Not only did we select favorite images from our various sessions but we also incorporated several images from my client’s personal arsenal of special photos. With the images selected, I then custom designed a display for her wall, hanging dimensions and all (and let me tell ya, if that wasn’t a math exercise, I don’t know what is …) and provided her with the framed, ready-to-hang images.

We went from this:

To this:

I’ll sign off with my client’s happy comments. (A little shameless self-promotion, I know …)
“Thanks again for all your help! I love looking at the photos all day! They really add to the house and I couldn’t be happier! Now of course I’m obsessed with the other walls.”

Thanks for stopping by and checking out this post. Perhaps I’ll be able to share one of your walls one day?

I first met up with the Sinnema Family back in November. We hit it off immediately and had a fabulous session. I think before our session was even over, we were already talking about our next session to take place in the spring. Then, suddenly, in the blink of an eye, five months pass and it’s time for us to get together again. I mean where did the time go? What happened to all those days? It’s as if they disappeared like sands through an hourglass or something like that …

Ha! Like my little segue? Actually, you probably won’t quite appreciate my clever little intro until I explain that Hailey and Lauren play Sydney DiMera on Days of Our Lives. These twins are hardworking girls with over 130 episodes already under their belt! And their sister, Hannah, most recently completed a job for Disney’s www.family.com website. Being the working girls that they are, however, they’re not resting on their laurels. It’s time to update their headshots for their agent and get them – and their sister — out on more casting calls for future gigs. I can’t wait to find out where we will see them next.

You can always keep up with the girls’ latest happenings on the Sinnema Sisters website. You might recognize a number of the photos from our November session.

Enough linking and talking about their work. Let’s get on with the show and bring out some of their photos! Big props go out to Mom and Dad – you guys helped A LOT throughout the session, doing anything necessary to elicit genuine belly laughs and smiles such as this one from Miss Hailey:

And one from Lauren:

Hailey, looking a bit more serious here, but not any less adorable.

The twins, together:

Big sis Hannah knows how to work the camera when she wants to. Ya just gotta make sure you’re there when she decides she wants to!

I wish the girls had been closer together when I snapped this shot. But with young toddlers, I realize that sometimes you can’t control everything.

When we wrapped up the shots in their nice clothes, we stripped ‘em down and let them enjoy some ice cold popsicles on this hot summer day. They had worked hard for their reward and definitely deserved the little treat. L&J, here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll see in your gallery. There are a lot of adorable popsicle shots but I’m not posting them here due to the naked chests. They are adorable but I’ll leave it up to you to determine whether you end up posting them for public viewing or not.

Lauren. Drool. Yum.

Enjoy! We’ll be in touch soon.

We met each other in middle school (I won’t mention how many years ago that was!) and spent a good portion of those formative years writing notes back and forth to one another. From the mundane (what was for lunch) to the critically important (which boy was the cutest), the content of our notes varied widely. What never wavered, however, was our friendship. (Ha! Who am I kidding? This is middle school we’re talkin’ about here … I’m sure there were probably one or two fights along the way. LOL) In all seriousness, though, I’m so happy that Jen and I have remained friends over the years and that we’ve actually been able to reconnect and see each other in person a few times since my move to Southern California. And while we may no longer scribble notes to each other on college ruled paper from our 3-ring binders, we do find each other leaving notes for each on our Facebook walls now. My, how we’ve grown up …

Last week, we met up for a quickie session with Edgar, her adorable little pug.

I’ll leave you with this photo I love. Looks like they are both smiling!

JF, your gallery’s ready. I’ll email you the 411 shortly.

Had a fun little session on Friday afternoon. No time to properly blog the session tonight and I’m out all day tomorrow (picking oranges with the family at Erich’s grandmother’s orange grove) but I just had to throw at least one photo up on the blog.

This guy will do anything for food.

Back in a few days with a real post! Perhaps with a mimosa in hand …

Back in October, the hip and stylish clothing gods introduced me to the Baby Eggi clothing line. (Some of you might remember my Baby Eggi blog post in which I suggested it as a good wardrobe option for portrait sessions.)

Shortly after that post, the hip and stylish clothing gods blessed me yet again. These ladies, my clients and co-founders of Baby Eggi, hired me to shoot their Spring 2010 catalog. I was thrilled! And excited for the challenge. Shooting clothing — for kids! — was going to be right up my alley. There was a ton of work that went into planning and pulling off this shoot which took place back in November. (Cinderella, Shay, and of course, Jeung and Julie – you guys rock! And Crystal, you were an awesome assistant. I couldn’t have done this without you.) As you can imagine, a ton of work went into the design of the spring catalog and website after the shoot as well (Jeremy, I am so impressed with your work). Throughout the entire process, there was an incredible energy and positive dynamic. Thank you, Baby Eggi, for giving me the opportunity to work with you guys.

The catalog is SUPER cute (but still in draft status) and I’ll share that when I can. In the meantime … I just couldn’t wait any longer to post and direct you guys over to the Baby Eggi website so you could start SHOPPING. Best part of all? Baby Eggi will donate 20% of the proceeds from January 1 until April 30, 2010 to support non profit organizations that are providing much care and assistance to the people of Haiti. So go ahead, feel good and shop with a conscience.

Baby Eggi Clothing

It is incredibly fun and rewarding to see my images used so effectively throughout their website. In BOYS, the first 5 articles of clothing are part of the new spring line. For GIRLS, the first 7 clothing items are new.

And since this is a photography blog … and since most of you readers do come here for the photos … below are some of my favorite images from the shoot. The theme for their line and this shoot was “Love is in the Air” … I love how these images fit the bill.

Patience. It’s not just a virtue, it’s a requirement. When it comes to photographing 1.5 year old children — twins, in particular — you need to make sure that in addition to bringing your cameras and lenses, you come stocked with patience. A lot of it. Kids at this age aren’t the easiest to direct, no matter their personality or gender. When you’re trying to capture two of them together, though, the patience requirements are exponentially greater as you work to synchronize temperaments, appetites, locations and the like. It can be a while before you find your groove and start capturing those picture-perfect shots.

Last week, I arrived at Johnny Carson Park, excited to shoot and armed with patience. Good thing as I needed to draw from the reserves right away. Parking was hard to come by and it took rounds and rounds of circling to secure a spot. Once we were settled into our location, we then had to wait for what seemed like every single commercial landscape maintenance worker in Burbank to do his job. There were commercial lawnmowers, leaf blowers, you-name-it in the works. Fortunately, I got to use this downtime to catch up a bit with the beautiful, fit and active mom, Lauren of Nutri-Savvy. As much as I enjoy and value Facebook (we see each other there regularly), there is simply no replacement for face-to-face interaction.

So together, we played with the kids. We chitted and we chatted. And eventually we eased into our photography session.

It was a pleasure reconnecting with these darling baby girls. The last time we got together, they had a lot less hair, teeth and mobility. Maybe you’ll remember them from our photo session in Griffith Park last year? Or perhaps you’ve seen them on HBO’s Big Love (they play baby Nell). And if you’re new to the blog, let me introduce you to these gorgeous, hard-working babes.

Meet Ailish.

Her sister, Julia.

One of my favorite things to capture with my camera is the relationship between siblings. Twins, especially, have an extraordinary and unique connection. Here are a few storyboards of the girls having fun together.

These eyes are just to die for!

Serious about their work, these girls even have their own website. Check it out: The Official Website for Ailish and Julia O’Connor. I love seeing my photos all over the site!

I’m looking forward to watching Ailish and Julia grow and wonder what role we’ll see them in next …

I had intended to start scheduling sessions beginning in February but when one of my sweetest clients asked if there was any way I could get something on the books earlier, I couldn’t refuse. We moved her session from March to January and I couldn’t be happier. What a great way to kick off 2010 sessions!

I’m running out the door but since I had to get this photo up for a deadline, I thought I’d go ahead and blog it as well. These twin girls are just too gorgeous not to share with all of you. I’ll be back today or tomorrow with a “real” post and more from our session. For now … enjoy these beauties.

This image sort of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?

Today we took an impromptu field trip to downtown Los Angeles. I pulled Nate out of school, invited Grandma to join us and the four of us (don’t forget Lincoln!) made our way down 101. Although we’ve lived in Southern California for over three years now and our home is situated only fifty miles from downtown LA, I am a little ashamed to admit that we haven’t been taking full advantage of all the sights and activities Los Angeles has to offer. In 2010, I vow to change that. Since our trip to Germany, the sightseeing bug has implanted itself in me and I want to explore. I want to expose the children to more culture, more diversity, more interesting sights, activities and fun. I gotta show ‘em there’s more to the world than Scooby Doo and Mario Cart.

The catalyst behind today’s outing was a need to get some documents notarized by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. (Long story, don’t ask.) Sitting in the office overlooking Wilshire Blvd, surrounded by Mandarin speaking people, the boys thought that we were in China. Ha!


Sidenote: For some reason, Linc has taken to this “hands under the chin” pose whenever I ask to take his picture. Where did he learn that this was a desired picture pose? It certainly wasn’t from me.

Then we headed over to Grand Central Market, Los Angeles’ oldest and largest open air market, for a great lunch. (And the best Mexican hot chocolate at Hill Street Cafe.) The overall vibe reminded me of Pike Place Market, on a much smaller scale.

I love this capture of the boys lunching together, by themselves, at the table. They look like such big boys munching on their lunch discussing who-knows-what. So cute!

After lunch and a casual stroll through the market, we crossed the street to check out the Bradbury Building, an architectural and historic landmark. From the outside, the building didn’t look all that impressive to me. It was nice, but nothing that seemed extremely noteworthy to me. My opinion changed when I walked up to the door and caught my first glimpse of the interior.

I am already looking forward to our next outing and have a bunch of places jockeying for position #2 on my list of LA sightseeing day trips. Definitely open to suggestions and/or company! Just keep in mind: trips are expected to be on the shorter side and need to be suitable for a 5 year old and 3 year old.