New To the World: Welcome Baby Gabriel

If you see me wearing my glasses instead of contacts to work, you know I'm tired. Last night was worship practice, tonight was dinner for the in-law's 22nd anniversary, tomorrow morning is boot camp (exercise class that makes it hard for me to get up from a prone position for days), and then a photo session in the afternoon. And before all this, I stopped by to finally visit my friends, Whitni and John, and their baby boy, Gabriel. Gabriel just hit his 1 week mark when I finally got to see him, I was sidelined due to a persistent cold and hacking cough that lingered.

Speaking of which, Scott and I believed that we got sick from watching our favorite little girl, Miss HB, who was dreadfully sick. She had recovered fully when I babysat her this past week and she was soooo adorable, as usual. I gave her plenty of hugs and kisses. A few days later, Scott told me that her parents wouldn't be joining us for a bbq because little Miss HB had developed some sort of "hacking cough." To which, Scott pointedly looked at me and said "Hmmm, I wonder who else I know with a hacking cough." I don't know. I was just as confused as him.

Anyways, here's a sneak peek...this is my favorite and probably the best image from Baby Gabriel's debut session.

In case you forgot, here's where he was a month ago...

From two people blissfully in love....

comes one blessing content to be loved.

The rest of his session to come....stay tuned.

John and Whitni-A Maternity Session

John and Whitni, a couple waaaaaayyyyy younger than Scott and me (well way more younger than Scott at least) but married twice as long. They are high school sweethearts from Alaska. Interesting, huh? I think anyone from Alaska automatically earns 50 cool points. They joined our minichurch. One Wednesday night, we were sharing prayer requests and they shared that they really wanted a baby. Seriously, the next week they came back and said "guess what, we're pregnant!!!" They made it look so easy.

I have so much respect for military couples. What a lifestyle, one that I can't even begin to comprehend. They uproot their lives, move to a completely different state and start fresh. Finding churches. Finding jobs. Making friends. Three years later and it's back to square one. And then Whitni was in her third trimester when they learned that John would be deployed and it looked like he would leave right before the birth of their first child. Whitni was simply amazing. Just took it in stride and was never anything but her positive, sweet self.

So I met them on base at their home. We aimed for early morning but I think I'm going to aim for late afternoons now. We didn't get going until nine and then the sun was up and beating down on us. We finally headed inside, hot and sweaty, and finished the session crammed in the corner of what would become baby Gabriel's room.

Can you tell I'm busy, because I took these pictures when she still had a month to go. And they are now parents...of a little bouncing and beautiful baby boy, Gabriel. And a praise report, John's orders were changed and he was and is NOT being deployed. Yah Yah!!!

Troy and Bow have a baby girl

My dad used to tell me that beautiful people have ugly kids...then joking-ly say "too bad for you kids that me and mom are so good-looking." At least, I hope he was joking. But, alas, I don't believe him for a second because, time after time, I see beautiful people with even more beautiful babies. Troy and Bow who rocked their maternity session a month ago are now the official beautiful parents of an even more beautiful baby girl, Mikaela.

Mikaela has tons of soft, silky black hair and I caught her sneaking some smiles in her sleep. These pics were taken in the family living room and accented by the tantalizing smell of what appeared to be home-made meat jun cooked by proud grandma, visiting all the way from Thailand. Mom was on hand to help me pose little Mikaela. Scott and I don't have kids yet so I'm still nervous handling such small little newborns. They look so delicate. Everytime we got her where we wanted, I could finally breathe again. Seriously, this session was just practice for me...and it was way harder than I thought it would be. I was sweating bullets. And the pink box pose, at one point, she started to wake up and roll off...whoa nelly. Bow didn't freak out which I was thankful for, I think I was more nervous.

And the first two are shots that I really like from other photographer's streams and was real excited to try. I spent forever trying to find a beanbag which I read is the key. But, then I got lost. After putting the baby on top of the beanbag, she would immediately start sinking into it. What to do? I had to cheat and put books under the beanbag to try to make it more firm and then I ended up adding a little pillow. Hmm, I may have to ask people. Seriously Bow was so helpful. I would show her what I was trying to go for and she would try her best to pose Mikaela. And even though they just fed her before i got there, she was fidgety and hungry until they fed her again and then she fell deeply asleep. So much easier once she was full and asleep.

Here is little Mikaela...

Irish and dylan at Kualoa Ranch

What: Senior Portrait Session with Dylan and his sis, Irish
When: Prince Kuhio Day, March 26th, 2009
8:00 am
Where: Kualoa Ranch

I have to give props to bow, Bow, whose maternity session . She worked it by sending out emails linking to her maternity session post and it really generated great word of mouth. She also gave birth to a beautiful little baby girl, Mikaela (not one of the two spellings we were working with in their session hee hee). Stay tuned for some pics for little Mikaela's newborn session.

Anyways, after Bow's maternity session, I received an email from Gina, a friend of Bow and a friend of mine. I've known Gina for a few years already, we both volunteer in the baby nursery at Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay every other Sunday. She's also a good friend of Bow's and loved the pictures. She asked if I would consider taking senior pictures of her son, Dylan, and doing a portrait session with her daughter,Irish, on the same day. Um, Gina, of course. I knew Irish because she, like her mom, also volunteers in the nursery but I hadn't met Dylan before so mom had to email me his school picture. We set the day for Prince Kuhio Day, a State of Hawaii holiday, for which I'm not really sure why. Scott is going to mock my hawaiian education, considering I went to a school only for part-Native Hawaiians, but I don't know who or what Prince Kuhio did. I think Kuhio was from the Big Island too because we have a mall named after him in Hilo.

It was realy awesome for me because Gina chose the day and the location. When people leave it up to me, it's so much harder...you can go in so many different directions depending on the location. Beach casual? Urban sidewalks? Woods? I was super nervous and I studied up (flickr my favorite place) on poses and angles. Gina chose an awesome location, she knew someone at Kualoa Ranch and was able to get a permit. Good thing, because it's got so much variety, I went on overload. And they are pretty strict, someone drove up to kick us out but Gina shouted out the magic word "permit." I met her, Dylan and Irish there at 8 in the morning. Poor things, having to wake up so early when you don't have school. And I was a little nervous because Gina claimed that Dylan and Irish didn't like taking pictures. If that's the case, I don't know who she swapped in for them because these two teens were complete hams. Seriously, you can never call these two shy. The location was so awesome and just fun to explore. They climbed trees and walls so I had the easy job of just chasing after them. We were done in no time at all and I LOVED their pictures.

My biggest downfall, I used a really small fstop which means completely short depth of field. It makes for great blurry backgrounds. But, up close, their eyes would be in focus but not their mouth. I should have closed down my aperture a bit. Lesson learned.

Dylan is laid-back, his mom says always reading a book or playing a video game. Once the camera turned on him, he gave Zoolander a run for his money.

We don't have fields of wheat but I finally found a field that I could get this shot. I'm always tempted to let our yard get seriously overgrown so i can use my backyard, but I think my neighbors would glare at me.





I love this next one...I don't know why. He just looks like he's the king of the castle.

Irish, the slightly younger sister, is not shy at all. She's an avid volleyball player and you can see her every other Sunday in a room full of 2 year olds at church. She's also gorgeous, just look at the photos.

Irish was resisting the urge to play up her farmer side...she cracked me up.



I love this next shot, I wish I had taken a few more and had them pose. But Irish was just climbing up and I got nervous and had her come down. There was a significant drop on the other side.

This one...MY FAVORITE!!!


This was my first senior portrait session and my subjects are usually well over twenty or under the age of three, so I was a tad nervous. Can I just say, that was the most fun session ever!!! I had to call Scott on the way home and just gush about the entire experience. Thanks to Gina for raising beautiful kids, and Dylan and Irish for being totally cool with my crazy ideas and going with it. You guys rock!!!

PS. Scott and I both have sore throats. Pray for us.

Growing Up: Sneak Peek at Dylan and Irish Portraits

Here's my absolute top two faves from this session with Dylan and Irish. I promised their mom I would post my faves as soon as possible.





Okay, Gina. I'm getting right back to work. You have such cute kids and they were so much fun (just like their mom)!!!