Posts Tagged: Pixels On Paper Photography
What to Expect during a newborn photoshoot – we’ve got you covered
For those who missed it the first time, it’s important to repost if you have a newbie at home: How to Prepare and What Really Happens during a newborn portrait session.
So, what really happens during newborn photo sessions?
Well, for starters, the sessions don’t flow from pose to pose and set to set, as I’m sure you’ve already imagined. We’re dealing with fresh little beings who have been breathing on their own for only about 10 days. They don’t know about lighting, where to look or to remain still, because they are little tubes. Breast milk or formula goes in and poop comes out. In the middle they stare, cry and sleep.
A newborn session can take up to four hours. During that span, our camera is not up with the shutter clicking away, because, as mentioned, newborns babies are entirely unpredictable. We never know when or how often they will cry, sleep, eat or need a diaper change and all those things tend to take the most amount of time during our session. A fraction of the 4 hours is spent capturing images, but don’t worry, we tend to get the magic because we know what to look for and when to seize a moment.
Here’s a little guide that helps moms who are breastfeeding and planning the photo shoot day.
- Give your baby a bath and lather him or her in lotion and bring the lotion with you. This will help condition any peeling skin.
- Keep your baby awake before the session if possible. We know this can often be tricky during the car ride, but do your best.
- We want you to bring us a hungry baby! When you arrive he/she will be ready for food and a nap. Those sleeping angels make the best portraits. Try not to feed for a few hours before arrival. Feeding when you arrive at the studio will ensure that he/she will drift off to sleep and be most cooperative to being posed and photographed.
- If you are nursing, there is a list of foods that we recommend you avoid for 48 hours before your session that will help keep your baby from being gassy or fussy during the session.
Read the entire blog and be in touch! We understand what it takes from behind the camera and in front of it! We’ve got your back.
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.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Pets & Babies – Photos of Life
I feel like I’m in a little series of sorts – about life vs. posed photography. Just recently – casual family portraits and more about day in the life sessions.
Don’t get me wrong. I love weddings. But more and more Ryan and I are enjoying the Not Formal. So today, it’s about dogs and babies. Or pets and kids. We’re flexible.
Can’t we all just agree that dogs and babies – pets and children generally – are the tonic we need these days? Can you count on them to pose? Nope. Can you count on them to want to wear something that they don’t want to wear? Not really. Are both pets and children happier running around naked? Welllllll…. yes, generally. We aren’t endorsing the nude approach, but we do want the photos we take of your pets and your Littles to be honest, real, endearing and fun. There is time for posing your kids in their later years. For now, let’s celebrate asymmetry. Let’s enjoy a little unstructured time and play and let’s get it on film.
That’s our Chelsea (“she said, trying not to sound like a bragger”) catching a ball mid-air. I know….. she’s fab.
Whether it’s Day in the Life photos, pet photos or photos of babies, call us to discuss ideas! Our outdoor portrait garden is a great spot, but there are parks galore that make perfect backdrops.
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.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
happy 4th of july from your photographers and fellow americans
Today is Independence Day in the U.S. and it’s no newsflash that we Americans feel, at times, like we don’t recognize our country… or each other, or what we grew up with. Some days, it feels like we’re truly coming apart at the seams. If you watch the news – any American news, really – this is the topic: We’re divided. Social media hasn’t helped us find our better angels, either. And the result is that we’re world-weary, anxious, suspect of others, and sad. Did I say, “weary?” Well, I’ll repeat it.
But as I sit here thinking about all of this angst and noise, and then think about what today means, I don’t have to grasp for gratitude. I still feel it because I’m surrounded by things that make me feel it.
I was “brought up,” as we say in the South, with love. Then I found a partner in life who loves me and I him. We understand that crazy balance of partnership love and personal independence and we try to keep the two in harmony. We also have our core values: Be kind, be open-hearted, be respectful, give grace when you want to judge, show integrity, do your best and assume the best in others – live the golden rule, etc. Ryan and I try to live out these values daily.
I’m grateful for that.
We started our life and our business and there have been ups and downs, and there will be more, but we’ve made a point to reach out, because two people are just two people. It’s not enough.
You need more. You need community. You need others of all stripes. We found that community and we keep finding it. We found all of you!
We discovered tribesmen and women in our home community of Wilkesboro, and in Charlotte, Asheville, Charleston and many points beyond. These cohorts are made up of locals and transplants, fellow travelers, passers-through, memorable acquaintances, artists, business professionals, beer lovers, kid lovers, photogs, music junkies, rabid gardeners, home renovators and creatives. Our freedom grew by letting others in. It all – YOU ALL – make our life better. We’re grateful for that.
Then God sent us this Nut. I say it with Christian love, but he’s a nut.
Finley James joined us just over 8 months ago and our home life and community – and what that even meant up til then – expanded yet again. Our son is a gift, but he’s also our teacher and in-house comedian who cracks us up, makes us scratch our heads, and finally flop into bed exhausted. But I tell, with gratitude, that we’ve never felt more happiness in our growing sense of life, community and love. This little disruptor is a gratitude machine.
We know, sweet community, that you’re celebrating the 4th of July and that’s as it should be. Showing gratitude makes your life expand in ways you might never expect. We are celebrating too. My hope, and Ryan’s as well, is that during this major U.S. holiday that you’ll find a minute in the chaos to really identify the things that you’re grateful for and sit with them – mentally or physically if you can.
We as parents and friends and community members are all still intact, despite the stuff that worries us in the daily news. We still have work to do to be better and more inclusive, more civil and more tethered to each other in the right ways….. but community, expansive hearts, curiosity, care and feeding, forgiveness, affection, tolerance and resilience are as much a part of the American core value system as liberty — in fact, those things undergird liberty.
Happy Independence Day.
Go Celebrate! We love you,
Misty & Ryan
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.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
ellis family outdoor portraits – elijah turns one
Isaiah – One Year!
For this most recent portrait session with newest member Elijah, the Ellis’s wanted to be outdoors again, but the constant rain earlier this season caused us to reschedule this session three times. Mom Ashley joked that Elijah might turn two by the time the rain stopped. But as always, everything happens for a reason. When we finally got to photograph them, it was gorgeous out and Ashley’s Mom was visiting from out of state so she was able to be a part of the day. We all met up at a park in Statesville, NC where Ashley once played as a child.
This pic below cracks me up. How much would you pay to know what Elijah was thinking? He looks so suave and cute and the curls on the top of his head are just too much.
“On the road of life together.”
This photo – all of these photos – give me so much joy and hope for the future. Family continues to be the institution we all turn to the most for inspiration, comfort and hope. Cheers to the Ellis’s. Keep holding together you four. Keep chasing each other around and hugging and bonding. We hope to see you again soon.
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.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
baby, baby, baby ~ professional portraits of those first, sweetest moments
“The Angel that presided o’er my birth
Said, ‘Little creature, form’d of Joy and Mirth
‘Go love without the help of any Thing on Earth.'” – William Blake
Baby, baby, babies. They are awesome, and noisy, and smell great, and then stink up a diaper. They can make you feel like you won the lottery and make you want to yank your hair out – in between naps – and feedings and trying to find your way back to normal with a new human around. There are so many important milestones in a life, but the entry of a new person is one of the biggest. We always encourage new parents to consider getting portraits made of their newborns. We know you’re tired and we know there is some effort involved, but here are some things to think about:
- We’re good at it. We’ve been doing this for well over a decade (nearly 2) and we have the props, places to nurse in private, a changing room…. we’re ready for you.
- You’ll never be able to capture these moments from the first 10 days again. When they are over, they’re over. There will be other moments, but not during these first, fresh, tender few days.
- You’re tired and need a hug. Let us get Little Miss or Little Mister photographed while you rest, even for a moment. If you need to feed, no problem. If you need to change him or her, no worries. If you need that hug and an understanding nod, we have those in spades. You’re not alone. We can make it fun.
“When you were born, beloved, was your soul
New made by God to match your body’s flower,
And were they both at one same percious hour
Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole?
Or had your soul since dim creation burned,
A star in some still region of the sky,
That leaping earthward, left its place on high
And to your little new-born body yearned?
No words can tell in what celestial hour
God made your soul and gave it mortal birth,
Nor in the disarray of all the stars
Is any place so sweet that such a flower
Might linger there until thro’ heaven’s bars,
It heard God’s voice that bade it down to earth.” – Sara Teasdale
These little miracles will be smashing their first birthday cakes after a single trip around the sun. Then they’ll walk, if they aren’t already and talk, and start reading and you’ll find them upside down in a hamper or wanting to jump off the front porch barefooted or flushing something valuable down the throne…… and suddenly, it’s their first day of kindergarten and then senior prom.
Do yourself a favor if you are expecting and think about newborn portraits and photo shoots for your soon-to-be-born baby. If you hired Pixels for your engagement and wedding portraits, then you may have already chosen to have us capture newborn photos when the time comes. We do have a package that many of our clients have taken advantage of. Regardless, you’ll love these images. We’ve designed walls around children and family portraits and would love to do the same for you.
See this little princess wrapped in pink below? That’s Berklee. Just below her image is a recent one of her, now nearly 3 years old, with her new brother Wyatt. Pretty sweet, huh?
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.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.