Here is the culmination of the portrait series I shot of Crystal, documenting the pregnancy and birth of her new son Andrew.  Crystal and her family were amazingly patient with all the shoots through the months and were just great to work with.  It turned into a real labour of love for both of us, and I think the end-product – an album that captures the story of little Andrew’s arrival into the world – turned out wonderfully.

Catching up on the portrait sessions, here is part 3 of the series I shot for Crystal and Shane.  The previous session documented Crystal at full term, shortly after which she and Shane welcomed little Andrew into their family.  Accompanied by his parents and older sister Allyson, Andrew came into the studio just a few days into the world.  I’ll soon be posting the culmination of all these shoots: a series that shows the full progress of Crystal from pregnancy to birth.  I’m really looking forward to seeing how it turns out.  In the meantime, here are some select faves from the latest shoot.

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This is the second set of images from a pregnancy/maternity series I’m doing with Crystal.  We’d already done a number of quick shoots through the summer documenting her growing belly and the plan was to do a longer session once she was close to full term.  It was a bit of touch and go as Crystal was showing signs of being ready to pop, but we managed to get into the studio before it happened!  This time, she brought along the family and Shane and Allyson got to share in the spotlight with mom and the belly.  Through all the shoots so far, Crystal has had that “radiant expectant mother” look about her, and though it took its time getting there, her belly by the end was fabulously big and round.  I’m pretty excited about the album that’s going to come out of all these sessions!  In the meantime, a handful of favorites from this particular session:

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DJ and Erica were coming up on the due date for baby #3 and couldn’t decide whether to get maternity photos or newborn photos.  So in the end, we did both!

You’d think the first session would be all about the belly, but their two little daughters – Becca and Bella – had different ideas.  Bursting at the seams with energy, ideas, and just awesomely crazy hair, it was hard not to make them the stars of the show!  But we did get manage to get some pics of the belly, and even squeezed DJ in for a shot or two.

It wasn’t long thereafter when news came that the Seales had welcomed a little boy – Andrei – into their family.  Within a week, we went back into the studio so that we could catch Andrei while he was still in the “brand new baby” phase.  Brand new baby he might have been, but this little guy was unreal – lifting his head and looking around like he was already a 2 month old.  Both DJ and Erica are avid volleyball players, and naturally wanted a shot of the little guy with a ball.  But his strength of neck + his strength of will made it super difficult to get the shot, as he kept pushing himself or the ball away (ironically, he had no qualms about hanging about with a football though…).

Between the fun shots with the girls, to the cool maternity and newborn shots with DJ, Erica, and Andrei, it was a tremendously enjoyable shoot.  It was also neat to witness/be part of what sometimes feel like the overnight transition from big belly to little, new baby.  Congrats to the Seales family!  Only a handful of many, many shots I liked:

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Our second child was delivered by a midwife tandem and it turned out to be a very positive experience for us (thanks Janice & Jen!).  And with the Midwives Association of Manitoba looking to launch a new website, it didn’t take much convincing to get behind this shoot.

The studio saw a steady stream of babies, their mothers, and the midwives that helped bring them into the world. As always, it’s an enjoyable challenge to shoot under some creative direction. The aim was to create fresh and happy-feeling images so we stuck mostly with a clean white look.  And though I really appreciate the use of colour harmony in pictures, I don’t often get a chance to purposefully apply it myself, so it was also fun working with the brown and green accents throughout the shoot.

Some of my faves from the session:

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