The farmhouse is nestled in the hills near Pendleton, Ore. After a lovely drive down there, I arrived to find a beautiful old red barn and the grandfather saddling up a horse under the awning of a wooden grain elevator.  Oh my! This was going to be good.

The place was amazing, and frankly these images are only the tip of the iceberg. I could have gone on and on; however, a two-year-old only has the patience for so many photos. But hey, at least that leaves me with plenty of places to photograph in the future.

It was such a pleasure, too, photographing the grandparents. From the top of his Stetson down to his silver rodeo belt buckle, and starched Wranglers, the grandfather was a true cowboy through and through. And his wife was such a lady. They met in College in California. He was there for the rodeo team, and she was a young debutante. It looks like he was pretty good at roping because the rest, as they say, is history. It was such an honor documenting three generations on their family farm.

Be sure to check out the rest of the entries at I Heart Faces.

You may wonder then, is it difficult to come up with something new year after year for the same family? Well, yes and no. Yes, it can be a challenge to make every session unique and capture a child’s changing personality. Yes, it can be hard living up to the images you’ve knocked out of the park for them at past sessions. But on the other hand, and I think more importantly, it gives you a freedom you don’t always have with brand new clients. You know what a returning client likes. You know their kids already, so you don’t have to introduce yourself and make friends in the first 20 minutes of the session. But even more importantly, it gives you the freedom to just be yourself and capture the art as it develops naturally.

For example, this session had all the components of a dream photo shoot. The location was amazing at the family’s working cattle ranch, the clothes were to die for, and the two girls couldn’t be more adorable and precocious. The rub, well, little Miss Marlee was exercising her budding independence, and that day she didn’t want a thing to do with pictures or her big sister, thank you very much. No matter how we tried to get them together in a photo she was out of there in less time than you can say “cheese”.

Now some moms would be getting pretty stressed out by this point, so I turned to their mom, Kim, who has become a dear friend over the years, to let her know it would be alright, and not to worry. Kim, cool as a cucumber, then gave me one of my most cherished compliments to date. “Sandy,” she said. “I’m not the least bit worried. No matter what the scenario you always come back with beautiful photos. I can’t wait to see what you get this time.”

Well my goodness. What an honor to have someone place such faith in you. Yet what she really did was help me see something that I should have already realized. When things get the hardest is when my inner artist comes out the strongest. Some of my most difficult subjects have produced my absolute favorite images. And it’s not because I had to work so hard to achieve them. In fact, it’s the opposite.

There reaches the point where you cannot do a thing about it. Children are beautiful in not just their innocence and honesty but in their resistance to direction. You cannot force a child to do something they don’t want to. Not only will there be screaming involved, but the resulting pictures are not going to be something your clients will want to hang over their mantelpiece.

Instead you just have to let it go. Take a deep breath, turn off the thinking part of your brain, and let your inner artist come out. Take chances you might not have before. Why not, it’s not like the traditional photos are much of an option at this point anyway. Just capture what is happening in front of you from pure instinct. Shoot from the heart and not the head. You may be surprised what happens when you do. This session, well, it turned out to be one of my favorites from the whole year. And yes, the profile picture of the two of them running across the pasture went up big on their mantelpiece.

I Heart Faces

Weekly Challenge: Let Them Be Little

We had a lot of fun with all the locations and outfits we used for this child portrait session. Check out my take on a urban look in the first pic below! I couldn’t have dreamed up better lighting if I’d planned it weeks in advance. I love the storybook feel to the woods images too. I don’t think Miss “E” wanted to take off her pettiskirt. She was having such a good time twirling!

The last location produced one of my favorite images. I adore the image of Miss “E” in black and white on the chair. Who needs pictures with everyone smiling in them all the time. I love her soulful, serious gaze. I can’t help it, there’s just something about the quiet ones that draws me to them.

Enjoy!

I shot this for her 9-month-old session. I waited a little too long to capture it, though, and unfortunately my husband had already harvested all of our own wheat. To top it off, both Addie and I had the worst summer colds, and I almost canceled the whole thing. But wheat harvest in our area was nearly over, and I had scrambled to track down a field that hadn’t been cut yet. This one was scheduled to be cut the very next morning, so it was now or never. I’m so grateful we did it because I think it worked out even better than I’d imagined. The wheat had grown so heavy that it had fallen in a few places making it the perfect spot to photograph her.

My main purpose was to photograph her standing up as it was a recent milestone for her. But I can’t help it, I just love this image of my baby girl bathed in sunshine. You could eat the light with a spoon, and her solemn gaze just makes me want come out from behind the camera and smooch her chubby cheeks.

I Heart Faces Weekly Photo Challenge

Theme: A Touch of Sun

Why am I talking about this? Well it’s probably because looking at these family images is making me realize how much my shooting style and workflow has changed over the years. You’d think after having been a photographer for so long, these both would have been set in stone, but, in fact, this was far from true.

This family below was one of the first I photographed after I left the newspaper and started my own business. I still really love many of the images from that session, but looking at them you could almost think it was a different photographer who had taken them. Of course I still had the story telling images and the family interactions (I am a journalist after all), but four years ago open shade, back light, sun flare, and reflectors were hardly even in my vocabulary. A photojournalist doesn’t modify what they are photographing, they work with what they have. Maybe you throw in an off camera strobe, but really it’s just about capturing the moment, and anything that slows you down or changes the scene you are documenting is a big no no.

In many ways becoming a portrait photographer has freed my inner artist. I’ve had to learn a lot to get to the place I am now as a photographer. I am still telling the story of a family, but now I’m no longer held to the rigid hands off standards of a hardcore photojournalist.  This has changed everything from my shooting technique to my post production imaging. I have been using Photoshop since it was practically invented (I probably just dated myself). But while my color correcting skills where top notch, I didn’t have a clue on how to use all the tips and techniques I do now. I had to teach myself everything from Lightroom to skin tone plugins to RAW conversion. As a newspaper photojournalist I would have been fired if I changed the color and tone of an image or added a texture. Now it’s an integral part of what I do every day.

Yes I am still a photojournalist, but now I’m also an artist. It will always be about the story, but now how the story is told is up to me.

If you’re a subscriber to my Facebook Page, you’ve gotten to see snippets of some of my recent work. But let’s be real, what Facebook makes up in convenience it loses in image quality. It’s famous for chewing up and spitting out images. Not to mention they’re so tiny. That’s one of the best things about having a blog. Not only to I get to natter on about my work, but the images take center stage, and they’re showed off in their best light — big!

Meet sweet, sweet little Julia. I’ve been photographing her big brother for years and years. I was bummed that I couldn’t do her newborn session, but I was on maternity leave myself because she was born just a few weeks after my daughter. Luckily, I was given the chance to photograph her later on. I might even go so far as to say I like this age even better. They’re sitting up, and their little personalities are just starting to emerge. Plus, they’re not mobile yet, so you can still do lots of fun set ups with them.

I’ll be the first to admit I often get picture envy for images I’ve taken for my clients. I wish I had the same pictures of my own children. You can put the images of Julia in the lamb hat near the top of that list for sure.

Enjoy!

That’s it, I’m moving to Dayton!!!

OK, now for the next perfect family session…I’m thinking hot air balloons, and elephants…and trained bears dancing on circus balls, and cotton candy, and……….

I love everything about summer here in Eastern Washington. The golden light, the warm summer breeze, those little bugs that fly up out of the grass and make sun motes in the late afternoon light, wearing sundresses, and of course, cool sunglasses. I could ramble on all day. But, what I love the most about summer is, to me, the season is about childhood. School’s out, nothing to do but soak in the sun, and go on a grand adventure.

Enter Little Miss Sunshine the lovely Kaelynn. I can’t think of a better little girl to help us celebrate the wonder that is childhood and summer. I’ve been photographing her since she was a teeny, tiny, roly-poly little newborn. Here she is just past her second birthday.

I know I’ve said it at least a hundred times, but it amazing to be given the opportunity of capturing images of a child as they grow. They change so much and so quickly. One minute they’re a tiny swaddled bundle the nurse puts in your arms, and the next they’re running, wild pigtails flying, and you can hardly catch your breath just watching them. Oh goodness.  I better stop there before I get even more teary eyed. My daughter, Addie, learned to crawl this week and I think I’m a little emotional about it.

So without further ado, enjoy this little slice of childhood summer, the adorable Kaelynn.