This last weekend I got to celebrate with M & her awesome family for M’s first birthday.  I wasn’t able to be at the party the weekend before, but with her Miss Piggy in Paris theme, I only imagine it was to die for. 

Look how cute she was in her birthday hats!

Oh, and those baby feet… I have a thing for baby feet.  And for baby eyelashes.  I love love love photos of both!

Look how much fun M has with Dad in these next couple.  So adorable!

And we managed to be comfy outside for all of five minutes for these next few:

She was so fun to watch play on her pink pony… I have pretty cute video of this, too… just wait for your slideshow, Mom & Dad!

We got a few sweet grinning photos of Mom & M:

…but just so everyone knows, more of them looked like this:

Miss M loved her books, but the “reading” didn’t last long…

More photos required tickling, or throwing her upside down, in order to get any sort of sitting still at all…

Oh, Miss M, you are a heartbreaker already.  Just wait until you get old enough to understand what that means!  It was so much fun to see you guys for this, Mom & Dad… I can’t wait to get all the rest back to you, too! xoxoxo Amy

Sweet baby J, who I have been photographing since last January, celebrated a milestone this month.  Baby J finally turned one!  It has been a pleasure watching her grow… she is such a ball of fun, and her parents just eat it up.  They spoil her like crazy – look at all this fun they planned for her!  First, some snow photos… even if it’s been chilly:

After she settled in with some books, Dad started building her favorite “crayon tower”:

Which she was then thrilled to knock over, just to be able to eat the crayons on top :

And when we talked about a cake smash, Mom wanted her little girl to have healthier influences.  She started with produce animals (I love the eggplant zebra!):

…and then we proceeded to jello, a baby protein shake, and veggie cake covered in whip cream and fruit:

She was appropriately not hungry by the time cake around!  Cleaning her up, she then decided to play with her paintbrushes that were still laying around from her book play time… we may have a baby Picasso on our hands…

And you’ll notice my little Coco wanted to get in on the fun… Mom showed baby J how to “paint” Coco’s toenails and this back-handed “here-eat-my-paint-brush” was as close as J then got:

I had a ball, Mom & Dad.  Thanks again for all this fun, and I can’t wait to get to do some more family-oriented photos for you in the next little bit! xoxo Amy

This morning (yes, this morning!!) I got to visit gorgeous Mister Y as my very last newborn session of 2011.  I met these guys when big sister M was just 7 months old, and I can’t believe how time flies.  Now, M is nearly three and the family has expanded by said little brother!  I am busy busy busy this next week with New Years and a few other things going on, so I couldn’t help but spend the hour tonight to go through just a few of the photos.  Yes, that means this is a shorter blog than normal.  But I wanted to make sure the family had something to share before I get around to going through the rest of these. 

J & D, it was such a pleasure to meet the little guy.  You both are awesome parents & I’m glad you now have two little ones that match your level of awesome-ness!  I am so excited to continue watching the two of them grow!

Mister Y love love loves to be swaddled.  What seven day old baby doesn’t??

Such sleepy little baby eyes:

So precious!  On a separate note, I have people ask all the time about doing newborn photos at home vs. doing newborn photos in my basement studio.  You can see how these photos are more lifestyle-oriented, whereas there end up being a lot more squishy faces when we take photos in a more confined (and less personal) space.  Compare this short blog entry to one of these 2011 more studio-oriented newborn sessions: baby K and baby N. 

Thanks again, Mom & Dad… and to everyone else, a very happy New Year this weekend! xoxoxo Amy

I loved taking holiday photos for this family.  Little C is nine months now and I’ve been photographing him since three months… he & his big brothers have been a blast, and I can’t believe that maybe – just maybe – I am starting to get the hang of them cooperating.  At the beginning it was “I can only be in two photos before I quit” from someone or another, and now it’s “thanks for coming to play”… these little boys are so coming around to this.  :)  That actually makes me proud!

On a separate note, I went through my spam comments today & realized that I’ve missed a few real comments from people the last month or two.  I’m so sorry if you commented and it never got approved or whatnot.  I promise it was a slip & not intentional.  Any of you bloggers out there have any good tips on how to sort through the spam?  I get 100+ spam comments weekly (maybe daily, if I went to actually count them) and it can be pretty tedious to go through & find ones that are real.  Is there a way to block these?  I need to do some google research here shortly on the matter.

Regardless, happy nine month birthday little C! And happy holidays to the rest of the family — I hope you enjoy sharing these with family in the next few days…

 

Mister C is suuuuch a Mama’s boy!

And here, the little guy may be ready to scream, but he’s paying attention to us, and that’s something…

But here he’s happier!

Biggest brother wanted to take photos in his room, which wasn’t the best on light.  I suggested he bring the coolest thing from his room to include in a photo… this was his choice.

Mom and Dad aren’t necessarily Bengals fans, but biggest brother has acquired fan-dom and so the rest of the family has started to follow suit.  So much fun!

Toward the end, I think C was getting overheated, because he definitely was not going to complete the trio & lay down with his brothers above.  But once we dressed him up like a reindeer & took him outside… yep, we found the trick.  We needed some fresh air!  Aren’t these next ones adorable?

Thanks again, Mom & Dad, for corralling the boys up for photos.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

And to the rest of you, happy holidays!  Hope you are all having a fabulous Christmas (& Chanukah) week!

xoxo Amy

I got a call the other night from a client family that needed written permission to print my session photographs.  Usually when I get phone calls like this, I slightly die inside, because they tell me that Walmart or Shutterfly will not print photos without it.  But this family quickly became one of my favorites when they told me that Dublin Cord Camera was the guilty party!

At a time when photo gifts are at a premium, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of printing your photos professionally.  There are so so so many places to choose from, and there are a few easy ways to tell if a photo printer is worthy of your holiday photo gift to Mom or Grandma.

1. If the store specializes in something else, their printing investment probably won’t cut it.  Walmart, CVS, Walgreens… you get the idea.  These are not photo printers.  They are other types of stores/companies that happen to print photos.
2. If the store promises 1 hour service, chances are… well, same as above.  There are a few exceptions to this.  Cord Camera (a professional lab here in central Ohio) does have a 1 hour turnaround time for their glossy prints, and their more-desirable matte finishes can be done same day (but not one-hour).  More on finishing in a few minutes.
3. If the store offers photo books and gifts starting at $5.99 (many large websites), they work for the masses and specialize in quantity, not quality.  If you want quality, look elsewhere.  Shutterfly and Snapfish fall into this category of less-than-par photographic printing.  I’m sure there are many other quantity-not-quality labs that fall into this, I’m just not aware of all of them out there.

Having said that, I know I may have eliminated many labs that my clients use.  So where to turn?  Cord Camera in Columbus is the best local resource we have.  They have stores all over central Ohio and if you’re interested in quick turnaround or local pickup, this is who you want.  They’ve got a user-friendly website that you can upload photos for ordering & indicate where you want to pick them up.  (And no, Cord Camera is not paying me to say this… but I would be open to it if they would, because I’m such a believer!)

However, Cord Camera can get pricey, especially if you want prints bigger than 8×10.  I use a few other sources for different things.  I print out my hugest enlargements at www.pephoto.com.  I recently ordered an 11×14 for a beautiful matted frame – a holiday gift, of course – and I paid less after shipping with PE than I would have with Cord.  Not all of PE Photo’s prints are professional grade, so you have to be careful, but if you choose wisely, they do an awesome job.  And for those of you who think that pro labs are for the snooty, PE Photo is 99% of the time cheaper than Walmart (even after shipping)!

And then there’s Radium Photo (www.radiumphoto.com), where your prints are printed if you order them through me.  This lab is up in Michigan, and they have their perks, too.  They’re generally midway in pricing between PE & Cord, and they do an awesome job.  It may be petty, but I specifically print with them for my business because they have the rounded-corner die-cut wallets that are perfect for clients to give out to their friends and family.  Nothing looks more professional.  Their larger prints are just as stellar and the public has the option of printing through their website, too.

There are countless professional labs that are out there that aren’t open to the public, and I will tell you that I use these pretty frequently (all my press-printed products & albums, at the minimum) but I think the above sources are reasonable for my client base and a good starting point no matter who you are. 

One last word, and if you get anything out of this post, get this:

PRINT IN MATTE OR LUSTRE FINISHES!

No matter where you print, you should have this option.  If you don’t have this choice (i.e., they only print in glossy finishes), RUN!  As a general blanket statement, my style of photography – the natural, laughing family photos that I adore – demand matte or lustre printing.  I prefer the latter, lustre prints, but at the minimum, go matte.  A good lab, with a good finish… there’s nothing that beats this.  Stand back and appreciate your beautiful photo product!

A side note… if you have problems printing your session disc photos, there is a disclaimer on the front of the disc that gives you full printing & web-sharing rights.  If you still have problems or are printing from your hard drive & have lost the disc, please feel free to call! I can help you get a new authorization of release.

Let me know if you have any printing questions that weren’t mentioned here… and happy holiday photo printing! Xoxoxo Amy

(and a couple photos… because I can’t post an entry without them!)