Newborn Baby Photography

Newborn Baby Pictures | Children’s Photographer

In August of 2010 I photographed Christina and Tim’s fabulous wedding and the Casa Romantica in San Clemente.  Pictured above is Benjamin Kai Anderson, a precious tiny bundle of joy, photographed on February 2, 2012.  It took a while for him to settle down for his newborn photography session.   Pictured above is their miracle baby Benjamin Kai.  It’s the ultimate compliment when one our wedding clients calls and asks me to photograph their newborn baby.  Benjamin was born 4 weeks early and his umbilical cord was wrapped tightly, three times, around his neck.  His grandmother told me that when he was born he was very purple.  To save his life, his umbilical cord had to be cut from his neck immediately.  Seems like Benjamin knew it was time to come out.  He certainly could not have stayed in the womb and kept growing.  At the end of his newborn baby photography session I was move to tears at how precious and prefect this little human being is.  In the weeks to come, I’ll post more photos from little Benjamin’s newborn baby pictures.

Speaking of New Beginnings

I’m very over due on posting on the blog.  My commitment is to past at least twice a week.  Sue Bryce wrote a wonderful piece about blog etiquete that I highly recommend reading.  Can’t believe its the middle of February already.  Where does time go?  At the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012 I did something a bit different this year.  I took off a month to really dig in and review my photography practice and redesign some of my marketing materials and price lists.  I also used this time to redefine my goals and my life style and look at what is most important to me.  One of my main goals was to simplify the entire cleint contact, interaction and purchasing process and refocus my vision for the coming year.  I took the less is more approach.  It felt as thought I was making the purchasing process too difficult.  There were too many choices.  When faced with too many choices people tend to get confused, because they need to sort things out and make sense of them first.  So, the  20 page collection list got slimmed down to 10 pages of content and only 3 products over three pages of actual pricing.  Don’t know what I was thinking….20 pages?  Anyway the new one is really easy on the eyes and very simple to quickly digest at a glance.   Took about 3-4 days to redesign and was totally worth it.

I made some tough decisions too.  Chiefly after 12 years in this crazy business of wedding photography, I decided to strictly limit the amount of weddings and be choosier like a Jiff mom about who I’ll accept wedding commissions from and shift my focus  to contemporary children’s portraits.  Rethinking and redesigning my collections took allot of time.  Sometimes a few days just to do one graphic design piece and get it just perfect.  Another project I embarked on…..for years my studio has been buying thank you cards.  Not any more.  I designed some vertical folded, 4×6 pearl paper, thank you, note cards.  I leave a bunch of them in my car’s glove box with postage stamps on them.  So after a meeting I can jot down a thank you note and pop it in the mail.  Email thank you’s are nice, but real, hand-written thank you notes are allot warmer and show you really do care.  Try it.  I think it will make you stand out from the crowd.  Redefining my goals and vision wasn’t an easy process, I suppose in the back of my mind I was already working the thought process during 2011.  But, actually sitting down to do it was the tough part.  Reinventing yourself is never easy.  But following your heart is definitely one of the keys to success.  Being in business for myself since 2000 has taught me to push through the fear.

Do people Ooh and Ahh when you had out your business cards?

Speaking of standing out from the crowd.  I was recently talking to a friend of mine who is an ELO (Canon Explorers of Light), who lectures and teaches all over the world.  This photographer mentioned recently that at seminars he’ll ask attendee’s to pass their business cards to the front for a prize drawing at the end of the seminar.  To his surprise, over 70% of the attendees used ripped pieces of paper to jot down their names or were printing their business cards themselves at home!  Yikes!!  Wow! I was blown away that such a high percentage did not have professionally printed business cards.  I know its a 101 kind’a thing, but come on folks, if you are going to be in business for yourself you need to have kick ass business cards that your are super proud of handing out.  A few years ago, I had my logo design done and paid allot for it.  Below is one version of my, die cut, hand printed, letterpress, business cards, printed on Crane “Kid Glove” finish paper.  Dave at Dependable Letterpress in San Francisco printed them for me and did a flawless job.  Yes they are expensive at almost $1.00 a piece.  At first I was so careful about who I handed them out to.  Now I don’t give it a second thought.  Sure a buck a piece is not for every one.  So how’s .11 cents each?  I also have another set of  digital press printed business cards that are stamp cut (in a similar shape) printed by Miller’s Lab on Pearl paper. 100 super professional 2×3 rounded edge business cards cost only $22.50.  You can give a blank template to your graphic designer  or do the design yourself  like i did.  These business cards even come with a nifty small metal carrying case that you can stuff in your pocket or purse.  So please, no more excuses.  Save the scraps of paper for throwing out your gum.  If you call yourself a pro, walk the talk.  BTW, almost every time I had out one of my business cards I receive a compliment on their style and uniqueness (both the letterpress and the digital press printed business cards).  Below is an example of my business cards, photographed with my iPhone 4S and tweaked in Adobe Lightroom 3.

Who is Seeing Your Work? | And |  Who are you showing it to?

The other thing that I was procrastinating on for over 3 years was having a window display that really popped.  It took about 3-4 days to design a montage of my favorite images that I shot in the last year and created two 30 x 45′s for my front window.  I wanted to show some of my best children’s photographer work.  Work that I’d enjoy shooting more of over the next year.  And the focus was purely on children’s photography and family photography.  A risk, but, hey, being an entrepreneur is all about taking calculated risks.  If you are going to work for yourself, why not do what you love?   It’s either that or go work for some one else and they tell you what to do and how to do it.  Because I wanted the display double sided (one side visible form the outside and the other from the inside) I sandwiched the two standout mounts together with contact cement and hung it by a double strand of 25lb. test fishing line from the ceiling.  I know it’s low tech but it works beautifully.  During the evening it’s spot lit and the color just pops.  Almost everyone who walks by the studio stops to look at it and points and talks about the photographs a bit.  Glad I took the time to finally do this.  It’s generated some walk in inquiries and a few phone calls in the short time its been up.  Moral of the story is, show people what you do, or they have no idea what you are capable of.  In the last 3 years two other photography studios have opened on my same block.  I’m proud to say that IMHO my window display totally rocks!  If sharpness, color rendition, expression and emotion counts.

After a month off I noticed a few things.  I felt recharged and refocused, and kinder and gentler.  I also started getting phone calls that aligned with my new focus of children’s photography.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Studio Engagement Sessions

Engagement Photography

A few weeks ago, a wildly in love couple, Kristin and Ray came by the studio for an engagement session with their puppy.  We had a blast collaborating on their studio engagement session.  More to come, plus some really great B&W’s from their engagement session.

Children’s Studio Session

Children’s Photography | One Year Old Children’s Birthday Photo Session

I’d say 1 out of 20 one year olds can hang in there for a full 45 minute session.  And Blakely did just that.  Or could it be my Magic Red Monkey beans….a.k.a. dried cranberries, which kids love to gobble up.  Chelsea, Blakely’s mom worked harder than me at keeping Blakely’s attention during her one year children’s birthday photography session.  We ended up with some magical children’s portraits.  In the coming weeks i’ll post more of Blakely’s beautiful one year old children’s birthday photography session.

p.s. My new favorite iPhone photo App:  Pro HDR  I down loaded this App while in Laguna Beach last week, just before my trip to Yosemite.  And boy am I glad that i did.  The HDR App takes two photographs one light, one dark and combines the images to make a High Dynamic Range photographs.  After you take your image, the App allow you to tweak it’s color, contrast and more.  There are also about 10 filter, my favorite is the Infrared filter.  It allow you to save your images and share them through email, social media and more.  After I tweak the photograph to my liking, I’ll use Instagram to upload it and post on Facebook too.  :-)  You can see some of my latest Pro HDR photographs from Yosemite by friending my on Facebook.  Even us children’s photographers need to have fun with our iPhones!