I met up with this beautiful momma to be and her family this past weekend for a quick maternity session.  They are expecting their second little girl, Sophie, in the next few weeks and mom looks GREAT!!  I can’t wait to do their newborn session – the nursery is already decorated (with a gorgeous shade of grey on the walls that I always want for my own house!) and I have a feeling that big sister is going to be in love with the new little one.  :)  I love the last photo – life before it changes forever!!

3,516 miles, two cities, four plane trips, 12 hours of flying time, two and a half hours sitting on a propellor plane on the tarmac in the snow, eight hours spent in airports.  All in eight days.  And you wonder why the blog’s been a little slow???  ;)   After three sessions in one weekend, it was time to turn around and go on back to back trips – one to New Orleans and one to Philadelphia.  Both for work – New Orleans was a photography conference called Imaging USA and Philly was to shoot a maternity session and baby shower for a client.  Now, New Orleans is going to be a whole separate post at some point here.  (I actually didn’t take lot of real photos *gasp*!)  But yesterday and today are all about Philadelphia.

A few years ago when we were living in Philadelphia, I did some head shots for Sheila for her job as a realtor.  Even after we moved, she stayed in touch with me and then a few months ago I got a very excited email from her – she was pregnant and she knew that she wanted me to do her maternity and newborn images!  I was, obviously, beyond flattered and also super excited.  Because I’ll let you in on a little secret – Sheila is gorgeous.  And she has great taste.  (If you didn’t see her maternity photos yesterday check them out HERE)   So, we started planning everything to come.  At first we were going to do a December session in time for cards, but then she asked me if I would come photograph her baby shower as well and we could do the maternity that weekend.  Although as a general rule I do not photograph parties, I will do them for former clients so I said sure and we made our plans.  A giant snowstorm, a few hours of sitting in a teeny propeller plane on the tarmac, a lost suitcase and a very late arrival later, I got to Philadelphia.  We ended up (due to my horrific day of travel) doing the maternity session the morning of her shower and then in the afternoon I arrived to shoot what turned out to be one of the most beautiful baby showers I have ever been to.  Surrounded by a ton of friends and family at a gorgeous home there was a lot of eating, talking, laughing and of course gift opening.  Even Sheila’s husband got in on it surprising her with flowers towards the end.  :)  It was so amazing to see all of these people gathered to celebrate this little baby (boy? girl? it’s a surprise!) and the mom and dad to be.  And I love that she had me there to capture it for her.

I can’t wait for April!!

There is SO much that I want to say about this past weekend and about this session back in Philadelphia.  :)  But I am getting caught up on allllll of the things I am behind on due to back to back trips!  I will say what I want to say in the post on this gorgeous mama’s baby shower coming up tomorrow.  In the meantime, enjoy this truly stunning mama-to-be.

I have known Dani what seems like forever now.  I knew her before we moved to RI and she is by far my closest friend here.  I’ve done several sessions with her now – her first maternity with her daughter, their newborn session and then a family session last fall.  So if she looks familiar, well, she’s been on here a lot.  ;)  Now she is pregnant again and they are expecting a little BOY anytime in the next few weeks yay!!  :)  I started bugging her early on about planning her maternity session. Her complaint?  She thinks winter maternity clothes are ugly.  HA!  Take a look at these and see just how “awful” she looks.

Truly one of the most breathtakingly beautiful pregnant women ever, I think.  :)  And before we all hate how amazing she looks at 36 weeks it is very important to know that she is also a runner and very health conscious.  She has run (I believe) three half marathons this pregnancy or two halves and one full – including a half at 28 weeks!!    

And being the great friend that she is, we did some realllllly funny stuff.  Most of it is going to stay with just her in the fear that someone would think it was real and submit it to Awkward Family Photos.  But here’s just a little tiny hint.  This is just the tip of the iceberg  ;)

There is something about a maternity session. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again.  There is just something I love.  Capturing that last period of time before this little tiny human being arrives; the happiness, the excitement.  All of that rolled together just makes me love them.  And Saturday morning’s session was all of that and more.  These two are SO excited for their new little guy to join them.  There was so much laughter and smiling and just excitement. It takes about 30 seconds of being around them before you know.  :)  And they are going to make SUCH great parents when he gets here.  I cannot wait to meet him!

A bit of blunt honesty time here.  I’ll let you in on a little secret most photographers have.  I sometimes really don’t like my work and get really bored with what I do (the work I produce, not the job itself).  It’s true.  I’m not being overly dramatic or self-deprecating.  I really do, at times, dislike what I have done.  I’ll love a session for a month or two.  And then I’ll go back and it just won’t do it for me anymore.   All I can see is what I did wrong or how I could have done something differently.  And yes, the opposite is also true at times.  A session I didn’t really like, shots I wasn’t really happy with; I’ll walk away for a bit, then come back to them and like them much more.  But I digress.  A lot of the time I can only see what I am doing wrong.  And I get frustrated.  I see in my work the same things that I rely on time and time again.  I desire so strongly to break out of the norm and do something different.  Change how I am shooting.  But in the end, I fall back on what is reliable.  What is expected.  I stay inside my nice little box of “do this, shoot that.”

It’s scary to step outside the box.

When you stay inside the the box things don’t change.  You don’t mess up.  Your work stays the same.

It’s also pretty boring if you never step outside the box.  You never mess up.  Your work always stays the same.  Complacency sets in.

And when that happens over and over, you kind of get the “blahs.”  And the blahs are no good.  Especially when you’re looking at four sessions in 48 hours!!

Amy’s session was my breaking out of the box and banishing the “blahs”.  I had been pretty “eh” about myself and my work recently.  Her session helped me out of my funk and helped me love my camera again.  It definitely helped me love maternity all over again!!  We set up three gorgeous, fun outfits and two locations.  Add to that a beautiful momma-to-be who knows how to stand and who is an absolute natural as well as some yummy light and great backdrops and you have the cure for the blahs.  I didn’t do anything totally ground breaking here.  But for ME it was something different and outside of MY box.  I had total say on locations and a lot of say in the outfits.  The poses were about 50/50.  But I love love love what we came up with together and I hope you do, too.  :)

I can honestly say that I don’t think I have looked forward to anyone being pregnant and having a baby more than our friends John and Rachel.  (Well, obviously I was more excited about *our* pregnancies and babies.)  But in terms of friends they are right up there at the top.  You have these best friends in your life.  Sometimes they are the people you grew up with (as my husband did with John and Rachel) and sometimes, like I have spoken about before, they are the people you inherit through marriage, like I did with them.  And when these people start to go through huge things like engagement, marriage, pregnancy you cannot help but be absolutely thrilled for them!!  John and Rachel got married three weeks after us.  John was Matt’s best man and Matt was in John’s wedding.  They have had a great six years of marriage, traveling, doing all sorts of things those of us that had kids quickly did not get to do.    But now, they are ready to welcome their first child, who is going to be an absolutely beautiful little girl, into their lives.  So last week when they came to visit us for the day, I took them out for some maternity pictures to document this amazing time in their lives.  Rachel is absolutely stunning, as we knew she would be.  And they are just as goofy as ever    And we are so, SO very excited for them and cannot wait to meet their little girl!

(John I know you hate this sweater but I actually really love this photo  )

There really is no other phrase for her.  Simply beautiful.  At almost 33 weeks pregnant, she literally glows with excitement and radiates  beauty.  And when you get her together with her husband?  You can almost literally feel the love and joy and excitement coming from them.  My friend and I were remarking that even though they have been married for nine years, it is like they are newlyweds again they are so happy.  But it makes sense – it’s something they waited a long time for…and something that I already know that they are going to treasure more than anything else.  I cannot wait for their newborn session.

J. and her husband contacted me back when she was only about 19 weeks pregnant or so and booked both a maternity and newborn session with me to document their pregnancy and their new precious baby girl.  Back on a very cold and very rainy gray December day, we did their maternity session at Roger Williams (you may remember them from THIS post.)  J. was absolutely gorgeous then at 32 weeks, so I shouldn’t have been at all surprised when their sweet baby girl came along and was just as beautiful!  I went out to their house this past Saturday for her newborn session and at all of seven days old she did GREAT!!!  In four hours, she woke up once, cried, ate and went right back to sleep after nursing.  She let me move her and pose her and do so many different things.  Now usually if the baby sleeps the entire time I can be done in about two hours.  But we just kept talking and I just kept finding more shots.  Their house provided a beautiful backdrop to photos!  And her nursery – oh my goodness gorgeous.  Hand down the prettiest I have *ever* seen.  I put in a little collage so you can see all of the hard work that was done by her mom and dad to put this nursery together.  So much love for this little girl – you could just feel it.   There are a few extras in this sneak peek for all of you with baby fever 

J. and J., enjoy her.  She is absolutely perfect!!!

And P.S. – in a sentimental thing for me, the one photo in here of L. laying in a wooden bowl on a table – that is my grandmother’s dough bowl from 1952.  Not a replica like so many others you see in photos.  Unfortunately, she passed away the day before this session at the age of 93.  So being able to use it here with this baby; extra extra special.

Every once in a while in the middle of a super stressful time such as holiday season, I need a refreshing.  A cleansing of my spirits, my (photographer) soul, my memory cards.  So I shoot for friends.  I tell them ask them nicely when we are doing sessions and then I drag them out in the cold and shoot for them and for me.  It is something I love to do.  It is something they love that I do, too.  (Or at least I am pretty sure – no one has strenuously objected so far!  )  And I love when it is good friends that I can shoot with.  Especially when I have been there since the beginning – through the maternity, and the newborn, and the six month phase.  It’s special to me to watch them grow as a family, and even more special to get to document it with my camera.

This past weekend meeting me in the Downcity area on a brisk Saturday morning was one of these good friends.  Miss L. has grown from a beautiful baby bump into an adorable toddler.  She did absolutely awesome running all over the financial district and the cold didn’t seem to bother her one little bit.  Could have been the awesome Boden warm jumper or the gorgeous sweater and hat that her grandma knit for her.  Or just the excitement of being outside and being allowed to run through empty alleys and stand (with her parents) in the middle of deserted streets.  (Note to clients:  downtown areas are perfect on Saturday and Sunday mornings – there is no one around!)   It was clearly good for her, and good for my soul as well.