We had our yearly family photos taken recently - what an adventure! We had a hard enough time last year getting Shaelyn to stay put for a photo, so as you can imagine, this year was that much worse! But our friend Jackie, who has finally turned her talent into a business, did an amazing job capturing our family, busy toddler and all.
We met at the beautiful Proximity Hotel. I'm sure Jackie just wanted to run around taking pictures of the hotel, not us. But we needed an indoor venue since the weather was supposed to be awful the day we scheduled the shoot. Lucky for us, the weather turned nice and the hotel had a pretty little patio, so the majority of our pictures ended up being outside. Keeping a toddler from touching all the "pretty things" in the hotel proved to be challenging, but we did end up with some great pictures on the inside, too. Jackie's great about taking candid shots and capturing the "real deal". It doesn't hurt that her camera and photo editing equipment are top of the line. So even if you have an on-the-run almost-2-year-old, she can still manage to get a good photo.
I had a wish list of pictures I wanted this year:
* a family photo (I didn't care if everyone was all grouped together or even looking at the camera; just all of us in the frame...)
* a maternity photo for me (I didn't get a professionally done one when I was pregnant with Shaelyn and was jumping at the chance to get it this time)
* a Daddy/Daughter shot
* a Mommy/Daughter shot (I didn't get one of these last year since Shaelyn wouldn't cooperate with me, so I was really hoping to get something this time)
* cute 2-year-old Shaelyn pics (always easy to get)
and I won out! Amazingly enough, even with a frustrated, hyper toddler and uncooperative weather, I managed to get a least one good pic for each category!
Since we were paying customers this year, in order stay in-budget, we limited ourselves to 20 pictures (of the close to 200 Jackie took - oh so hard!). I've uploaded the rest to Shutterfly, which you can see here.
(Last year Shutterfly let me add a link to my blog to allow you to watch a slideshow. This year they offer their own blogs, so they would only allow me to upload my photos to one of theirs. So I created a blog just for our pics. To see them larger, click on the bottom-down arrow that appears when you roll your mouse over the picture, then click "view picture properties". It will enlarge the photo for you and allow you to order a print right there. So if you are a family member dying for a certain pic, feel free to order away!)
Once you see them all, you'll agree, Jackie is amazing! I love that her pictures are artistic and non-traditional. It makes them so much more interesting and fun to hang on the wall.
Which one is your favorite?
