Posts Tagged: christmas canvases
Christmas is Coming – Time to Schedule Your In-Home Portraits
So much to do, so much to plan, so much to organize… and folks, I am right there with you. The mind reels during the holiday season. No sooner have you taken the surplus Halloween candy to work, than you’re gearing up for Thanksgiving. But we hope that you find time for making memories and capturing them for posterity. We managed to get out with our little pumpkin – Finley – to enjoy some warm temps.
But here is one task you can check off your list in 5 minutes: scheduling your Christmas portrait session. While you may not know exactly what you want your holiday portraits or cards to look like, or what you want your family to be wearing, or if you want to include pets, it’s time to call and schedule your in-home portraits session.
Pajamas and tree decorating. Check.
Wrapping presents around a fire. No problem.
Playing touch football in the yard. Sure.
Decorating cookies and destroying the kitchen. Why not?
Playing board games or lying in a pile watching the Grinch or reading The Night Before Christmas. Absolutely.
… whatever the tableau, we’re in to brainstorm, laugh with you, help with the idea and document it. At home sessions are WAY MORE FUN than you know, unless you’ve booked us for a one in the past. Families have told us how thrilled they are to have these specific memories forever.
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.
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Christmas at Home | An Evening with a Young Family
Describing a family and what family symmetry is, as it turns out, much harder than capturing photos of the chaos that is actually very beautiful, symmetrical if you will. Does that make sense? I showed up at the Minick’s house to photograph a Day in the Life session – a holiday at home session – with this family I’ve been photographing for many years and through many seasons of life. And it was all there … all of that insanely beautiful chaos that makes family life so glorious.
We started photographing the Minicks’ Christmases in 2012, when daughter Amelia was brand new. Now, there are 4 in this family, as little Matthew was added just 6 months ago. When we discussed a Christmas at home session, mom Rachel said they weren’t organized and hadn’t decorated and weren’t sure how they would pull it off. My answer: don’t worry. It’s your life and your holiday too. It’ll look however it looks – most likely, it’ll look like love. 
I think people believe that holiday photos, any photo sessions for that matter, have to be buttoned up and the house has to be spotless and everything is ironed and there’s no nonsense or pets racing around, or dust or ……reality. I promise that I couldn’t care less as a photographer documenting a day in your lives. When I arrived at their house, husband and father Ryan was just pulling into the drive with Amelia and they did what families do: they all greeted each after being separated all day and dumped bags and removed shoes and picked up where they left off: doing life together.
Amelia (4 years) loves to be in the kitchen cooking with her mom and wanted to do breakfast for dinner. Who doesn’t want breakfast for dinner???!!! But I digress. They prepped the table and food, cutting strawberries and Amelia made the perfect little sous chef, although she took the time to taunt little brother Matthew who was in charge of banging bowls and being cute. 
After dinner and chatter came pajamas and, on this day, tree decorating. Like MANY busy couples who work and have young kids, they don’t get the tree up the day after thanksgiving nor do they try to have IT all pulled together. After reading stories and pulling out ornaments, they decorated and all of the day — all of the chaos that wasn’t really chaos melted into beloved family time. At one point, Rachel turned to me and said, “this is what our ‘real life’ looks like!” To me, it was gorgeous. The dishes, the kitchen noise, the constant chatter and love, the diapers and pullups, tree stand and step stool, glitter and magic, just all of it. It was beautiful. 
I want people to see the beauty in the every day. We say this all the time and then we go running right passed the park, if you know what I mean. Amelia in her pjs putting the star on top and Matthew lying in the floor like, “what is this crazy ritual I just walked into?” So much love and perfect symmetry. 
I hope families who feel that every photo shoot has to be crisp and perfect and clutter-free will call us. I can assure you that those gorgeous and sacred family moments happen all the time and our job is to capture them for you. There is symmetry in the chaos of family. Our job as documentarians is to help point it out so that you can celebrate and remember it.
I want to thank the Minicks and other families who’ve said “come over. This is our home.” We get it and appreciate it and couldn’t love you more.
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.
Christmas Portraits at Home | The Pierce family
We believed, when we proposed the idea of taking Christmas portraits at client’s homes vs. set dressing our Pixels studio, that it would be a success. It would be fun, if not funny, magical and tender and, most critically, it would WORK. Well, the proof is in the pudding. We discovered this at the Pierce’s home earlier this month. 
Traci and Andy Pierce have let us photograph them numerous times over the years, most especially their sweet boys Holden and Sawyer. But on December 2nd, I went to their house to shoot Christmas portraits more as a documentarian than a portraitist and I loved every sweet little second of it. You never know what’s going to happen in the studio or on locations and I certainly wondered about this “big idea” of mine as well, but it was everything I hoped for.
The best part for me was being eyewitness to little moments and conversations that would seem mundane if not overheard by someone who cares and is tuned in. Holden wanted to zip his Dad’s shirt and read him a story. Traci and Holden had a conversation about their new house and why they left their old house. The whole family wrestled together and little Sawyer watched his big brother dance around pointing out ornaments on the Christmas tree. They were just little moments, but it’s exactly the “slice of life” I was hoping to get as the onsite historian. 
I’ve always wondered with this style of photography if the subjects could completely relax and be natural… ignore that I was there. It turns out, they can! After a half hour, they all go on about their lives and are naturally interacting with each other. I got to breathe, watch, aim, shoot and solidify moments that would have been lost otherwise. It’s a photographers dream and so rewarding. Even after many years in the profession, it felt wonderful.
Our lives aren’t perfect. Often they’re perfectly messy. They’re filled with clutter, unmade beds, scattered toys, half empty cups, to do lists, don’t want to lists, nose prints on windows and tooth paste on mirrors. But all these things make up our lives. It’s real, it’s us, it’s family, it’s life. Having that picture perfect family portrait is great. But having photos of real life also has it’s place in our lives and our memories. 
These recent photos amid the trees and holiday lights are the precursor to something bigger for Pixels On Paper Photography. Starting in 2017 we’ll be photographing A Day In The Life sessions. Documentary style photos of you and your family in your environment and every day life. I want you to see your life, your family and the everyday moments you share in a whole new light. We all need a different perspective and we all could use a little more reason to appreciate the lives we have been given no matter how messy they may be in real life.
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.
Photo Christmas gifts from Pixels On Paper photography | Personally Perfect
We’re now booking our Christmas at Home portraits, but we are also creating gifts in our workshop for those of you who already have a photo or photos you love from Pixels and would like us to create a gift for you or someone you love this year.
Prints, cards, canvases, albums, jewelry, ornaments, etc. are available for order using any photo or photos that we’ve taken for you at any time. It doesn’t have to be holiday in theme, as long as Pixels took it and you love it. Check out a gallery of Holiday cards we created to give you ideas.
All orders in by December 10th can be created and ready for gifting in time for Christmas.
Contact us and let’s get started!