After years of practice in the art of photography, I still crave new experiences.  My most recent adventure has been in newborn portrait photography.  Obviously, newborns are 100% adorable, but I’ve always struggled to capture portraits that are worthy of their chubby little cheeks and teeny tiny toes.  If you’ve ever tried to take a great picture of an infant, you have probably experienced my frustration.  Since they have very little strength at this age, posing them is a very difficult and delicate process.  Their mood is highly unpredictable, and let’s face it- they don’t take direction.  So when I saw Rachel Vanoven‘s work with newborns, I was fascinated.  I signed up for her workshop hoping to learn some tips for creating these amazing newborn portraits safely and masterfully.  All the images in this blog post are mine, taken at this workshop.  However, Rachel Vanoven did the actual posing work while demonstrating the techniques for each pose to the class.  I have had a few opportunities to practice these techniques since the workshop, and I can’t wait to get more experience!  If you are expecting a new little miracle, contact me ASAP for special pricing on newborn sessions (limited time only)!

This is one of the poses that fascinated me most.  It’s so cute and shows off all the cutest baby parts- fingers, toes, cheeks!  In the class we learned how to do this safely as a composite of multiple images, so the baby is never left unsupported.

I love this one- baby burrito!!

This baby was soooo sweet.  She is so happy to be held by Daddy!

I love these props!  I have a similar nest as shown on the left, but I’m still shopping for a cool bucket.  I love that I can spend time shopping at antique stores “for work”.

Holliday Park is one of my favorite places for portraits.  I enjoyed one of the last beautiful days of autumn here with some of my favorite people, exploring the park and making portraits.  Poor Liliana wasn’t feeling well that day, but she gave us some great images before going home for her nap.  I believe that when working in childrens portraiture, it’s important to give kids the time they need to go through their emotions and feel comfortable.  If they need a break, I give it to them.  Sometimes they’ll start to relax and play, and sometimes the best images come from those moments.  Some of my favorite images from this session were stolen from such candid moments.

Meet Alyssa.  She is two years old and 100% amazing.  She and her mother met me at Holiday Park to take some fun and creative portraits.  I had lots of great ideas for artistic portrait poses to try, but this little girl only had one thing on her mind: play!  Well, I didn’t get into children’s portrait photography to force kids into uncomfortable poses and bribe them to make fake smiles for the camera, so I suggested we take a play break and visit the playground.  We ended up having a blast together, she played, I chased her around with my camera, and her mom watched us and enjoyed!  The fun candid portraits we made together on the playground ended up being some of our favorites from the day.

What I love most about creating candid portraits of children is being able to capture their natural expressions.  I love the picture above because it shows so much joy, fun, and mischief.  Isn’t that what being a toddler is all about?

These little shoes…so precious!

Alyssa loved the playground telescope.  This shot might be worth something one day if she grows up to work for NASA!

A lot of people say I must’ve gotten lucky when I capture a shot like this.  The truth is it isn’t luck, I planned for it, positioned myself, and waited for it.  It often takes several tries to capture a great action shot, but perserverance pays off!

Some of my first professional photography opportunities were senior portraits.  These days, I don’t do nearly enough of them, which is a shame since seniors are some of my favorite subjects!  Of course I love all the work I do, but I was very excited to go out and shoot some senior portraits with James this year.  James suggested one of his favorite downtown locations for his session, the Indiana World War Memorial.  I instantly loved the idea, and the monument provided us with a great variety of portrait locations.

I’m not sure if this pose is actually “allowed” or not, but we knew the end result would be cool so we decided to try it anyway!

I thought it would be cool to take a picture in front of this engraved cornerstone, an while we were taking it, I noticed the shot below, which I think I like even more than the original.

This was taken by the fountain in the park next to the war memorial.  I love how the blue in the water brings out the blue in James’ eyes!

As a side note, James’ father happens to be my gardening neighbor!  He provides great company and conversation during my long hours of weeding.  He also writes a blog called A Commoner’s Life full of warm and humorous stories which you should totally check out.