Continuing my catch-up with the portrait sessions squeezed in between the weddings, here is a sneak peek into a session I did with the Lo family at their house.  Evelyn and Chung Yung had recently just welcomed their newborn son into their family, and with her parents and her brother’s family in town to visit, we managed to get the whole family into the pictures.  It was an interesting shoot in that it felt like we were switching gears every second shot – from serene newborn pictures at one moment, to hustling and bustling candids of the adults chasing after the toddlers the next!

Again, the great thing about shooting on-location at someone’s home is being able to capture some of the details and context of their lives.  Some of my favorite shots included the rocking horse that Evelyn’s father had hand-built for his grandchildren.  Another whimsical favorite: the newborn baby unintentionally striking a kung fu attack pose.  A quick handful from the session:

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Every spring, I look forward to the opportunity to work with the wonderful Sareen family and their two little ones: Mya and Aidan.  It was a bit of a revelation when it occurred to me that this was my fourth annual portrait session with them – how time flies!  With last year’s shoot taking place in the studio, we changed it up this year and I eagerly headed over to their home to chase after the kids with my camera in their own environment.

While there’s the usual surprise in seeing how much they’ve grown every year, the signs of change were rather apparent this time: you know time is passing when they’re out of diapers and have moved on to losing teeth.  But some things remain the same and as always, the kids were super excited, falling over each other to show me their latest toys, and all-in-all just a blast to be around. I spent some time following them around the house as they showed off their rooms and newly found piano skills (I don’t recall my kids being quite so focused as Mya was on the keyboard).  And with it being a bright and sunny afternoon, we headed out to the park, running after them as they pedalled furiously away on their little bikes.

Always a joy and a pleasure to work with – thank you to the Sareens for sharing your lives with me!  And some of my faves from the session:

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For a couple of years, Tim & Tara were the newest parents on the team with the arrival of Analeigh.  It seemed they were destined to pass the torch onto Jacq & Will when those two announced they were pregnant (see the previous post).  But apparently Tim & Tara weren’t ready to relinquish their claim to fame, as it turns out they were pregnant at the same time.  It occurred to me one day at a frisbee game that when Jacq and Tara were on the field at the same time, our team technically had a 9 to 7 player advantage over the other team (although I’m sure neither of them would have considered lugging an extra 20-30 lbs around an “advantage”).

And thus arrived little Sidonie.  Just like her older sister Analeigh, Sidonie is a little precocious fireball.  The two girls were squawking away in the studio, and it won’t be long before the two of them will be chattering away in complete sentences – in between squabbling for toys of course…

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My apologies for the slow pace of updates to the blog. There are lots of pics to post, but I’m tied up with workflow and teaching workshops these days!  One improvement I have been working on is displaying the blog images in slideshow format.  Makes for less scrolling and a cleaner presentation in my opinion – hope you enjoy it!

Here are a few from a studio session a few weeks ago with Klaus & Christine, and their two little daughters. Elena was a very new baby (about 2 weeks old) and she was sooo small in her parents’ hands. Her older sister Martha is about 2 and was a little whirligig in the studio, puttering around and talking in a mix of English and German. Considering her age though, she was amazingly cooperative for pictures – my favorite thing was how instead of saying cheese she would say “uh-oh!”. I think the first picture in the series captures that quite nicely…

It was supposed to be a family shoot of cousins, but unfortunately baby cousin Eric wasn’t feeling well enough to photograph.  Thankfully, little Gordie was still up to the task and handled the session like a champ.  He cooperated extremely nicely whether he was being passed around or just laid down to have his picture taken – though he did make us work to get a smile out of him.   Hopefully next year we can have the whole covey of cousins out for a group photo!