Alex the Photo Blog

When there’s a toddler that just isn’t excited about family photos (most aren’t), the best thing to do as a photographer is be patient and keep shooting.  Bribes work okay, but when McDonald’s isn’t enough and you’re promising them a sportscar on their 16th birthday, you know it’ll be the one promise they remember from their childhood.  ;)

With this shoot from last week at Agnes Scott College, the first photo sums up the first 30 minutes of shooting.  However, once I gave some time and helped Mommy and Daddy figure out what Natalie wanted to do, then the rest was cake.  I kept a smile on my face and kept shooting.  Eventually we let Natalie do her thing and we coaxed some smiles out of her along the way.  This isn’t news to parents out there, but sometime you’ve just gotta let the kids run the show.

If she wants to play in the grass, let her play in the grass.

If she refuses to get on the swing, ask her if she wants to push Daddy on the swing.

If she won’t sit next to you, ask if she wants to climb on you!

Though, of course if there’s a photo you really want… have Mommy count to three “or else!”  That often works too.  :)

I’ve decided that the next close-up baby shots will be performed by my 70-200m lens.  This way, my 50mm will be spared from baby sneeze aftermath.  

Finally back from the honeymoon and trying to get back into the blogging schedule.  More to come on what I’ve been up to, but here it the final family from my Four Families in Four Hours sessions in Roswell, GA.  Here are the Von Holts!

Of course you have to taste it.  Why not?

Still slowly catching up.  With my wedding in 3 weeks, it’s been tough to find time to blog.   Here is the Madden Family from our shoot back in July at the Roswell Mill.  It’s always fun talking with new parents to see how it’s going because you can often get very different experiences…  The Maddens are lucky in that they have been blessed with a very happy baby and have been loving every minute of parenthood.

Family number two of our Super Sunday Photo Block (sounds like a radio show, right?) was the Sullivans.  We’ve seen them on the APG blog before but the occasion today was Elena’s two-year photos.  She is such a cutie and was definitely taught the word “cheeeeeese” as can be seen in this first photo.  She was saying it even before I started snapping photos, so you could tell Mommy and Daddy prepped her well.

Throwing stones with Mommy.

Family photos are a fun reason to get outside and take pictures.  When the weather’s nice, you can’t beat fun family time at a beautiful location.   This is why I decided to schedule four families in a day at the Roswell Mill Park in Roswell, GA.  It worked out great for everyone.  The families ended up with pretty photos and a fun afternoon while I was happy to save a little gas money on an all-in-one photo day.

First up is Addie (and Krista) Bleisath.  I put Krista in parenthesis because this was supposed to be something of a model shoot for the gorgeous young Addie.  Apparently Addie has no problem hamming it up and striking a pose at home with Mommy and Daddy, but becomes very shy when around outsiders.  Needless to say, the shoot ended up with lots of Mommy photos as well.  We eventually coaxed a few smiles out of her and ended up with some great photos.  She definitely has a future career as a model as long as she can get rid of the pre-shoot jitters.  

A few Saturdays ago, I had the pleasure of taking photos of one of the more serious babies I know.  The truth is that she’s a very happy and fun child, but when a camera comes around she’s all business.  My take on it is that when you photograph young ones, you take them out of their element- whether that be changing clothes, mom and dad yelling from a distance to get your attention, or it could be travelling to a place they’ve never been.  What I found with Isabella was that as soon as we stepped onto Agnes Scott’s campus in Decatur, she was just too curious about her surroundings to think about smiling.  She wanted to play with the grass or put things in her mouth to take it all in.  Once she got comfortable we got some smiles and a good bit of laughter as well.  You’ll see a mix of both here.