Posts in Category: Families
Family Photos from the Porch | Welcome to the Community
The intersection of the Barnes family with the story of another young boy, Drake, who is battling cystic fibrosis can only happen when there is community. Ryan and I care very much about ours and we put our money where are mouths are as often as possible. For the 3rd consecutive year, we’ve donated a family portrait session to a silent auction for Drake, more specifically the Drives for Drake Charity. In 2014, the VanMeter family were the recipients and we shot photos of 3 generations on their horse farm. The Barnes were the winners from last fall’s auction and we took their photos in May of this year. Their young sons, coincidentally, are around the same age as Drake.
Trisa and Brandon, along with their sons Tristan and Tucker, just recently moved to Wilkesboro so both the area and their home were new to them. Trisa told us that her most memorable family portraits were taken on or around the family front porch over the years and their lovely new home had a perfect front porch where we could continue the tradition. The flag colored bunting helps, but between the house, the landscape and the boys’ scrubbed faces, it made for a fairly Rockwellian type of Americana. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear July 4th fireworks.
We wrapped up the session with a view of the sunset on the putting green at Oakwoods Country Club where “Drives Fore Drake” takes place, bringing the day and that sense of community full circle. While the Barneses are still new to Wilkes, we hope that inaugurating this chapter with photos, especially ones earned through charity, will make this place feel more like home for them. Welcome, you guys! We hope to see you around and take photos of your family as the boys grow and you all become more a part of the community.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
Fall Portrait Sessions – Time to Book!
We’re now booking our fall outdoor portrait sessions beginning in late September and running through October. Our clients are brides, engaged couples, couples with their pets, siblings, and families of all sizes. Because of our heavenly locale, clients tend to prefer the Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, Boone, and West Jefferson for their photo session, but the Pixels portrait garden in Wilkesboro is also ideal. If you have a special location, please get in touch with us and we’ll work out details and any special requests.
Fall photos are often framed or turned into holiday cards or both. Bring props or we’ll bring them, but let’s create some memories. Contact us today to book your date! We cannot wait to see you.
Some of our favorites!
The Allen Family
The Hatfields
The Picards
The Vanmeters
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
Fall Portrait Sessions | Time to Schedule
How’s everybody doing today?!?!? Science Girl here, with a quickie lesson about the seasons.
They change. Or more precisely… they are “caused by Earth’s tilt on its axis and the planet’s orbit around the sun. When the axis points toward the sun, that hemisphere experiences summer. The hemisphere tilted away from the sun experiences winter.” Get it? So quarter turns toward and away from the sun give us the “mid-extremes”of spring and autumn. In the mountains of North Carolina, however, autumn is called fall. And it’s AWESOME. The leaves change and languidly amble to the ground, we harvest the last of our gardens’ output, put away light clothes, haul out blankets, chop wood and take outdoor portraits.
We’re now booking our fall outdoor portrait sessions beginning in late September and running through October. Our clients are brides, engaged couples, couples with their pets, siblings, and families of all sizes. Because of our heavenly locale, they also tend to prefer the Blue Ridge Parkway, Blowing Rock, Boone, and West Jefferson for their photo session or the Pixels portrait garden in Wilkesboro. If you have a special location, please get in touch with us and we’ll work out details and special requests.
Some of our favorite family photos are fall portraits because the air is crisp and everyone is in that sort of scarves, boots, tramp around or “hunker down” mode. And these photos often turn out to be framed or turned into holiday cards or both. Bring props or we’ll bring them, but let’s create some memories. Contact us today to book your date! We cannot wait to see you.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs, engagements and weddings, brides, and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
Family reunion outdoor portraits in Roaring Gap, NC
What is a LARGE family?
What’s the threshold between, “is this IT?” and “if I don’t get 30 minutes alone, I’m going to ugly cry?”
Muse amongst yourselves, but while at it, meet the Hobens. Every year, they vacation in Roaring Gap, NC at a home that has been in one of the son-in-law’s families for many generations. 2 parents + their 3 children + their spouses and then their children. 16 total traveled from Atlanta GA, Charlotte NC, and Winchester, VA for the July 4th holiday weekend. And we were invited! Spoiler alert: there were no tears. Loads of laughs, but no crying.
This group is, as Goldilocks would say, Just Right in number and sense of fun. They were all a bit nervous and excited to have us since their last family portrait was taken nearly 8 years ago when the youngest grandchild was still an infant. Fortunately, this is not our first rodeo and we blended in and put them at ease, having fun, making jokes and of course picking on the teenagers. 
Before long everyone was laughing, relaxed and picking out more ideal backdrops around the home-place for the many group photos. Out and about the day after we photographed this family we ran into them again and they complimented us on how comfortable they were and how much fun was had. The husbands in particular noted how they despise having their photo taken but were relaxed with us and looking forward to seeing the pictures. That’s a great feeling and one of the best compliments!
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs babies and kids, engagements and weddings, brides and special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
happy father’s day 2016 ~ a little look back with humor and heart
We love our dads and Father’s Day is this Sunday, June 19th, so we want to celebrate fatherhood. The golf membership, neck tie, new leaf blower gift clichés were tired 40 years ago, so we’re skipping them.
And you’re welcome.
Instead of pablum, how about some photos we took of dads being dads with quotes that convey the depth and humor of fatherhood?
Here you go……
“There should be a children’s song: ‘If you’re happy and you know it, keep it to yourself and let your dad sleep.’” – Jim Gaffigan
“Having a kid is like falling in love for the first time when you’re 12, but every day.” — Mike Myers
“Be a dad. Don’t be ‘Mom’s assistant.’ Fathers have skills that they never use at home. You run a landscaping business and you can’t dress and feed a 4-year-old? Take it on. Spend time with your kids and have your own ideas about what they need. It won’t take away your manhood; it will give it to you. I did that. I spent more time with my kids. And I found out that I’m a pretty bad father. I make a lot of mistakes and I don’t know what I’m doing. But my kids love me. Go figure.” – Louis C.K.
“I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.” — Harry S. Truman
“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” — Umberto Eco
“You can tell what was the best year of your father’s life, because they seem to freeze that clothing style and ride it out.” – Jerry Seinfeld
“It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.” — Friedrich Schiller
“The only way I can describe [fatherhood]—it sounds stupid, but—at the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, you know how his heart grows like five times? Everything is full; It’s just full all the time.” — Matt Damon
“I gave my father $100 and said, ‘Buy yourself something that will make your life easier.’ So he went out and bought a present for my mother.” – Rita Rudner
“My daughter got me a ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug. So we know she’s sarcastic.” – Bob Odenkirk
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant, I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain
“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: he believed in me.” — Jim Valvano
“Having children is like living in a frathouse – nobody sleeps, everything is broken and there’s a lot of throwing up.” – Ray Romano
“Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.” –Red Buttons
“When you have kids, there’s no such thing as quality time. There’s just time. There’s no ‘Ooh, his graduation is better than going to the mall.’ It’s all kind of equal. Changing her diaper and her winning a contest – – it’s all good.” – Chris Rock
“A good father is one of the most unsung, unpraised, unnoticed and yet one of the most valuable assets in our society.” – Billy Graham.
We agree. Looking through these photos was a walk down memory lane as we thought about our clients and friends with kids – – – just how much these dads feel the responsibility of their children’s futures resting on their shoulders at the same time they want to enjoy every micro-second. This fathering thing is not for boys and we celebrate you men.
Happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s out there!