Posts Tagged: studio baby portraits
Sweet Hannah’s Newborn photography
Hannah Leigh Harrison was born July 10th to beaming parents Jamie & Daniel Harrison. These are beloved friends and clients of ours for years. We photographed Jamie & Daniel’s engagement portraits and then their October 2015 wedding. Along with Daniel’s son Henry now there are four of them, since adding their favorite new palindrome Hannah. The couple took us up on the offer we make to all of our wedding clients for free newborn photographs if and when they begin their family. We usually photograph newborns within the first 10 days of their lives, because that’s the window for getting those sleepy, curled up and cozy photos. It’s important though to make exceptions for babies delivered via C-section, so we invited the family to our studio on the 26th and it was still a wonderful and successful shoot. Hannah did not disappoint.
Before Hannah’s arrival we were planning for the shoot. Jamie & Daniel sent me photos of her nursery and various areas in their home where they wanted to hang photos. I found out her nursery colors and also that Jamie’s favorite color is purple. I then used those details and photos to plan the backdrop, gather props, wraps and headbands that Hannah would wear. With this preparation I was able to compose photos and design wall art that will coordinate with the family’s home and proportionally fill some of the bare walls. We love providing this service and our families/clients do too.
A behind the scenes photograph taken by Mom Jamie of Ryan and yours truly photographing Hannah in the basket.
I love this shot and so do the parents. They have a million adventures ahead of them, but for now it’s about snuggling and gazing at each other and bonding. We look forward to watching her grow, watching Daniel grow to love her even more and especially watch her realize how lucky she is to be a part of this family.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2017 Pixels On Paper. Pixels On Paper Photography Wilkesboro, NC Baby Photographer, Boone NC Family Photographer, Newborn Photography, Newborn Photography Winston Salem, NC, Newborn Photographer, Baby Photography, Baby Photographers, Charlotte NC Newborn Photographer, NC Newborn Photographer, NC Baby Photographer, Charlotte NC Baby Photographer, Winston Salem NC Baby Photographer, Boone Family and Portrait Photographers, Boone Photography, Boone Photographers, High Country Photographers, NC Photographers. Husband and wife team providing creative photography for weddings and portraits in NC, specializing in the NC High Country, Charlotte, Winston Salem and in the NC Mountains.
Family portraits ~ 3 generations sustaining each other
When the late poet (and part-time North Carolinian) Maya Angelou said, “I sustain myself with the love of family,” she was speaking for pretty much all of us. There are exceptions of course, but even when you run away like another NC native, Asheville author Thomas Wolfe, you find that your dreams are always tied to home and family. How do we pull together? How do we sustain ourselves? The Johnsons are an example of what that pulling together looks like. They are tied together and holding on to each other through welcoming new lives and encountering new struggles.
Mary Jane Johnson, seated in the center and surrounded by her family.
Recently, we photographed Kristen Andrew’s newborn son Jaxon with his big brother Luke. They were delicious. New brothers. New besties. Then Kristen contacted me with news that her Mom Mary Jane’s cancer had changed. Despite the early radiation treatment in the Spring of this year, Mary Jane was going to need chemotherapy in less than a week.
Their family had literally just grown by two with Jaxon’s birth in July and Kristen’s sister Lindsay’s son arriving soon after. Mary Jane’s chemo would begin on the 28th and I got the call on Thursday the week before giving me the update. We all know that chemo and hair loss are wedded, but I promised Kristen that I’d find a way to get the entire family photographed on the Monday before chemo began.
“Families are the compass that guides us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.” – Brad Henry
Monday arrived and it was pouring rain. Our plans for an outdoor session fell through, but with no time to spare I arranged the indoor studio with a backdrop that would suit what I knew about this fun-loving, country-inspired family of 10 and we made Mary Jane’s wish for family photos come true. She couldn’t have been more in her element surrounded by her husband Steve, daughters Kristen and Lindsey, and their husbands and their sons.
Chemo has been brutal and Mary Jane has already spent days in the hospital recovering from her first cycle of treatment. When the family returned to the studio last week to view all the photos, they were thrilled to have captured these memories. I hope that these images give Mary Jane a renewed energy and strength before she goes into treatment #2. Nothing will make you fight harder than love and she loves her family first.
“The family – that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.” – Dodie Smith
The Johnsons are strong in their faith and prayer is going to be a big part of them holding together as they move forward. As we love them and pray for them, we hope that ALL of our clients know how completely loved they are. Chemo is tough. It throws everything and the kitchen sink at cancer. We throw everything we’ve got toward making our clients happy. If Ryan and I can be there for you and help you create a memory of a moment, we’ll do it.
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.
Sweet newborn portraits | Sawyer surfs in
“I meant to behave, but there were too many other options.” – Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
And it looks like he explored every single one of them before crashing.
The Pierce’s have a knack for naming baby boys, especially if you’re a book lover. Their first son, Holden, brought to mind J.D. Salinger’s hero from The Catcher in the Rye. And now they welcome little brother, Sawyer. Above is the Pierce’s Christmas card, where Holden announced that he was moving from solo to big bro in a mere 6 months. For Holden’s first session, he was dressed in a pilot theme as a nod to his father Andy. For Sawyer, the themes were both fun and summery, as he’s a June baby and we gave a little wink to his mom, Traci’s career as a pharmacist – with the wooden box we “cozed” him up in.
While Sawyer is snoozing in most of these shots, he ratified our experience that photographers do not control the schedule at newborn baby portrait sessions. This little lamb wanted to be fed every 20 minutes and was extremely happy and very alert during our time with him and his mom.
“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” (Mark Twain).
One down, one to go, little man.
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.
pixels on paper’s favorite newborn portraits (well some of them)
Dr. Seuss would have been 112 years old on March 2 and “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” remains one of the most given books to kids of all ages. When we looked over the newborn photos we’ve taken to chose our favorites, I kept thinking about their perfect faces. The world hasn’t happened to them yet and THEY have not happened to the world. YET. So, here’s to Dr. Seuss, the great and wondrous unknown, and the impact these little creatures will have on the world. “KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!”
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
It’s opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.
And then things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
You’ll start happening too.
OH!
THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
On and on you will hike,
And I know you’ll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.
KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So… be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
You’re off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!
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.
Sarah Grace ~ portraits at 8 months with a girl’s best friend: bling
We humans measure time in a thousand ways. Clocks …….. seconds, minutes, hours. And calendars …… days, weeks, months. Changes in seasons, hash marks in inches on door frames, tire wear, grey hairs, dimming light bulbs, sunrise, sunset,……… and growth of babies. Their facial expressions, ability to crawl faster and then walk signal the passage of time. We measured Sarah Grace’s in photos.
Remember these pics of Sarah Grace as a newborn? She was as good as any Easter bundle could be. In November of 2015, we took her 8 month portraits in our Wilkesboro studio. Sarah’s mom had visions of her little charmer in a flower pot a la Anne Geddes. We all love those photos for their creativity and whimsy and at Pixels, we love props as well. This child, however, is not only too big now for planting in a flower pot, she’s a girl on the go. Getting her to sit still took creativity of anther kind. Still, we used Geddes as inspiration and integrated an old washtub, daisy accents, ribbons and lace into her scene. Way to measure time: she’s grown too big for a flower pot.
“I’m just gonna test these pearls and make sure they’re mikimoto quality.”
Curls, curls, curls!!
The pearls were meant to be purely a momentary distraction but pearls and diamonds are a girl’s best friend and clearly Sarah meant for them to play a primary role by not allowing me to take them away once introduced. And you want to know another way to immobilize a baby on the move? Dump her cute bum in a basket. Ways to measure time: it takes 4-2 trips scooping up a crawler and placing her back in the basket to get the right shot.
“This is my tongue.”
One of the things we love to do is work with clients to design wall art for their homes. It’s yet another way to mark time: photos of your kids on the wall.
We believe that we aren’t just capturing memories, we’re creating heirlooms and even in a world of selfies and smart phones with cameras, you cannot get the same warmth and clarity that you can from a professional session.
From the beginning, I knew that we would be photographing Sarah Grace for years, so I began scouting locations, taking photos of her home and special spots where the family has wall space they can fill with photos.
Through our own software program, we can design to-scale images on the walls and show clients renderings of what their photos would look like before they buy. Rather than fill an entire wall with just newborn photos, I planned ahead, so we are designing their particular wall to reflect an entire year of portraits of Sarah. We started with a 16×24 newborn photo as an anchor and then added two 11×14 images from this 8 month session. After her one year portrait session, we will complete this wall with four 5×7 images.
We’ll share the results with you when we can. In the meantime, we’d love to work with you and your family to take photos that will last for generations.