Henry and Oliver

So, a little over eight months ago, I shot this picture of a little guy named Oliver....

Who now looks a little bit like this...

Crazy, right? Now, since I love compare/contrast shots, here's a few more



These two are my favorites, Oliver and his Momma, then and now.





This is Oliver's big brother Henry. Don't those two names go together nicely? They just sound like brother names to me!

Henry is a love bug and has the biggest personality I've ever seen on a 4-year-old.

Their mom thought it would be neat to do a shot with some candy canes...isn't that a neat idea?

I love Oliver's face in this one!

Lilly

I really shoot the prettiest babies! This is Lilly.

I love how wrinkly newborns are before they start to fill out!

This is the big sister, Emma. She is probably the most compliant 2-year-old I have ever shot, which was rather awesome. I've been on a streak of easy-going kids lately!





This is the set up....

...for this picture!

I really loved their color scheme of greys and yellow.



This is probably my favorite "new sibling" shot to date!

Caden

Oh goodness you guys! This time of year is insane!

I can shoot 3 sessions a day (and did for about the last month) but I can only edit one when I'm that busy with shooting....So I got a bit of a backlog. Pre-Thanksgiving I was 40 shoots behind in editing, now I'm 20 shoots behind (and editing three shoots a day, which takes a bit of caffiene.) If you are one of the people waiting on a CD you should hopefully have yours in the next week.

Okay, now for a moment of peace in this insanity. Look at this gorgeous baby boy! This is Caden, he was 6 weeks old and slightly over 6 pounds when I shot him. Isn't he the cutest little peanut?!





This is how he feels when the Aggies lose.

Presley and Parker

This shoot was very real and unstructured. Just two brother with jeans and their favorite football jerseys on, wearing the traces of kool-aid mustaches and impish grins.

This is Parker.

Don't be fooled by the smiles, he's tough stuff!

Isn't this a neat tree house? Parker was very into having his picture made and suggested one with the tree house which I thought was an excellent idea!

This sweet embrace turned into a headlock .0245 of a second after this picture was snapped.

Presley worked the camera for me too. ;)

...and in a more normal state. Aren't those freckles amazing?

Ella

This little butterbean is Ella. Isn't she adorable?

I love how skeptical she looks here!

Aren't her eyes amazing? Such a light blue and then with the dark black outlining her irises. I find it very striking.





Can you see the heart shape her legs form?

Peyton

I shot the cutest little boy this other day! This is Peyton, isn't he a doll?

I got some good ones of his whole family too but I'm going to save those for the Christmas card and not reveal them here!

Love this one with his moma!

Okay, for all you moms and dads out there who shoot wiggly, prone-to-fake-smiles, preschoolers or toddlers I have a little tip for you that works for me oh, 98% of the time. Have the child growl/roar at you and then make a big show of being scared.

I tend to jump, and exclaim things like "You're SO scary!!! I must have jumped 3 feet!!!" The key is the response, the bigger the better. The child will then smile/laugh and you can get some natural smile shots from them. Trust me on this, you will get tired of this before the preschooler does! Of course this will get you a fair share of growling pictures, like this one below... which just might be my favorite picture ever!

Man, if I was his mom, that would be big on my wall :)

Anyways, that trick is what got us these natural smiles in the pictures below.





...and this one of him solemn, because he's just so adorable!