all the standard images

It’s nice to have professional photographers for friends. When they need help, sometimes they repay in pictures. Alan Honey’s son left on a mission recently, so he wanted to get his family’s portrait made before he left and asked me to pull the trigger since he couldn’t do that himself and actually appear in the portrait. As a thank you, he said he’d shoot my family and give me the images to play with however I wanted. We were really excited by the offer. You see, I think the last time we had a family portrait done, both of the kids were still in diapers. Seriously.

And, yesterday was our 8th anniversary, so it was about time to get proof that we could still stand each other. =]

Here’s last year’s anniversary image.

A week or so before I went to New York, I got a call late one Friday from a friend of ours. She had been expecting to give birth any day (actually, a couple of days prior to that), so we expected the call to be the big news that her baby had been born. That wasn’t the case. But, she thought, since she was still pregnant with nothing to do, would I want to do a maternity shoot with her and her family the next day?

Of course!

We went to an old house in Manhattan for a fun shoot with her, her husband, and their daughter. I was apprehensive going into the shoot because I typically like to do my shooting outside, with all the wonderful natural light. I found, though, that there is lots of lovely light inside, too, so long as you know where to look. In this house, we started upstairs by a big window, moved our way to the staircase, and then eventually to the front room with its massive windows and yummy light.

Here are a few of my favorites:

I especially love the light on her belly in this one:

Their daughter, the lovely Miss M, was all too eager to get in on all the fun!

We got a couple of nice family portraits while we were there, too.

And, of course, we got some great belly shots:

Lotus, Charles, and little Miss M, I had such a fun time with you and your family! And it was great to get to see young Master S at conference this past weekend. All my best to you and your growing family!

And for anyone in the Wamego area (or within a reasonable drive thereof…Manhattan, Topeka, Junction City) who is expecting, please contact me to inquire about the possibility of getting your own maternity session done for free to help me build my portfolio!

This past weekend was Stake Conference, which for us takes place in Salina. It’s almost a two-hour drive, which isn’t much, unless you consider that there is an adult session Saturday night that gets out at 8 and a general session the next morning that starts at 10. That’s a lot of driving.

So, this time around (it happens twice a year) we decided to get a room at a hotel owned by a local member who offers the rooms at a discount. They also have an indoor pool (which we occupied until very close to 10 at night on Saturday celebrating a young friend’s 4th birthday party.

Yeah, the kids slept really well that night.

None of that, though, compares with what happened back in the hotel room, if you know what I mean.

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There’s more in the gallery, a new feature that WordPress just launched not too long ago, down below (after the jump).

Enjoy!

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Our daughter shot our family with the Polaroid last week. It’s actually one of my favorite pictures of us now, minus the fact that she’s not in it.

And the fact that she cut off my head. =]

My kids are discovering the joys of Polaroid pictures, right on the eve of Polaroid’s quiet passage into the void. Here’s my daughter’s first Polaroid shot.
For anyone that missed it, Polaroid has announced that it’s going to discontinue making Polaroid instant film at the end of the year. Stock up while you can, if you care.