Every working professional photographer is bound to have them.  Those photo shoots that are just a little more challenging than others.  I have to say, I’ve been pretty blessed, because more times than not, I walk away from the end of a shoot thinking, “Cake.”   But I have had the occasional high school senior boy, who is ‘so not down’ with having his photos taken > but his mom is making him.  They can be a challenge at first, but I have always been able to work that age.  Shortly into those shoots,  they realize hanging with me is not all that bad after all, (because I’m cool after all).  They find they are relaxed, laughing, and actually having a good time. They forget they had planned to hold onto that difficult attitude, through it all.   Or there is the baby who didn’t take their usual nap that day, decide they are hungry, and isn’t feeling happy, or co-operative.  Like most babies, I go into it knowing they will need time, comforting, and patience.  (I have had 4 of my own, and 3 of them at once.  I’ve had a little practice there.)

So yes, it happens, where sometimes, I need to give a little more of myself, to make a successful shoot, out of a rough start.  In the end, we’re all very happy with the results.

Now, every year, I have this one particular client who hires me to have a Christmas photo shoot of her 2 little girls.  I design their family Christmas cards, which is important to her, and she also places a healthy print order. (Well anyway, I require my clients to have placed a minimum order, before they qualify for card designing.)   I truly love this client, and I love her girls.   I have posted about all of their previous shoots, in this section of the blog, before.  After 4 years of working together, it seems we have established a firm procedure:

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The little one (above), Little A, sucks the life right out of me for awhile, we finally get down to some quick and serious happy business, and in the end, it is one of my absolute favorite shoots of the year!!   Every year.  That’s just our annual routine, in a nutshell.
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The oldest girl (above), Big A, is a dream.  She is unbelievably polite, sweet, charming, co-operative, and a-ma-zing-ly patient with her little sister.  I also know she is also extremely smart, because I can see the wheels turning in her head, behind her eyes, when I talk to her.  She is so well-spoken.  She is beyond her years, I think.  A little beauty, with manners I can really appreciate.
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Her little sister, on the other hand, (in the background) is a challenge and a 1/2. I love her too!  Honestly, I do! But even at home, she rules the roost, so to speak.  I also love working with the girls’ mother, because she makes no bones about our annual situation.  She understands my position.  I think every year, our little one becomes just a tad more difficult.  Notice, she is not wearing any tights or shoes?  She refused to keep them on, and it was cold out.  Freezing.  The mom  allows me to use these struggles we have, with humor.  (As you’ll see.)  She also buys prints, of our most difficult moments, with her Little A, because she knows someday, they are going to be so treasured.  Real memories to share!

The difficulty can go on, for who knows how long.  But I never give up, because 1) I am committed to making my client happy, 2) I want that order, and 3) this particular shoot, is always a seriously beautiful ending.  Hard to believe, but true, nonetheless.   It’s like giving birth.  No matter how difficult the labor, you forget the pain, once you hold that baby in your arms.

(Ok, I have to admit, I have never forgotten the pain of my own labors with my children.  I can go back there in my mind, in an instant, still.  Maybe, because I refuse pain meds when in labor, so my head is all there.  But, I’ve heard many other mothers say the pain of labor is quickly forgotten.   I can certainly agree that it is worth every bit of the pain, in the end.  The same is true when doing this shoot every year.

Oh, it does tend to go from bad, to worse….

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It was during this moment, as she screamed bloody murder, and I hadn’t gotten a happy shot of her yet, that my infamous words came out:

“Come, Lord Jesus.”

These are the words I say, when I need some savin’, because I am about to lose. my. mind.

For the first time in 4 years, I was concerned I was really not going to be able to work it out this time.  That the whole shoot was going to be a complete bust.  It had been 45 minutes of absolute refusal from my sweet girl here, and we were losing time and light, fast now.

But Jesus came, and saved me, just as I called.  Something absolutely miraculously magical happened……

Our town of Plymouth has a power plant, and every rare now and then, the sirens go off over loud speakers, throughout the whole town.  A really high pitched, constant, annoying sound, that suddenly sounded much like a famous reindeer we all know!  ; )  Oh yes….I went there:

I let out a big <GASP>, and with that, said, “OH NO, Little A!  Listen!!  Rudolph is coming!!  He is wicked upset that we can’t get these pretty photos of you, for your Christmas card!  What are we going to do?”

If you could have only seen the look of surprise on her face, and the stammering of panic.  She got herself together so quickly, wiped those tears, turned her whole attitude around, and gave me every bit of that star quality she’s got, with a smile, that I work so hard to get out, every year:

Of course by now, the sun was blasting on my spot. But I was going to take what I could get, and quickly, at this point!

We moved on to the next little spot…..

She was freezing, and a little tentative once again, but workable….

In between their beautiful smiles, was Little A’s leariness of her sister, behind her.  She has a real serious aversion to her older sister. Hey, we all know they will be best friends some day, most likely.  It’ll be a beautiful thing!  But right now?  Little A can actually feel the compression of air, on her shoulder blade, if her sister leaned in to close to her, and she would scream her pretty little head off!

So this is where, I show multiple similar shots!!  My camera was going off like a BB gun, because I didn’t know how long this was going to last!  And it was getting darker, rapidly.  I was bumming a little, because I did have another spot or 2, that I wanted to shoot at with the girls, prior to this one.  But I knew we had lost serious time, so I had to prioritize.

I got them smiling and giggling with my antics and non-sense talk. (Really…there isn’t much I won’t do, if I need to.  I’m in full fool-mode, sometimes.)

But I can’t take all the credit.  My oldest daughter {A}, who is often my very helpful assistant, was right behind me, and really got them laughing.   As similar as these photos seem, I just love the progression of their expressions….

I am beyond happy at this point, and the mom is relieved!!  You know what is so comforting?  The mom always says every year, “If you can get ONE good one, I’ll be happy!”  God bless her. I have SUCH higher expectations of myself. I mean…..I know I can do better than that!!

My heart is full of joy at this point, and I just know, these photos are going to be beautiful – because these girls are!!  Look at them!!

Check out Little A’s tongue sticking out!  She does that all of the time, when she is laughing, and I love it!

Here’s a question for you……..Have you had any idea where we might be doing this on-location Christmas shoot?  Any guesses at all?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?

Well here’s the answer:

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Yes, the cemetery.  I scouted high and low, for a new creative place to work with this family this year.  If you’ve read the past posts with this family, I have full creative license, and I love that!  So, I always want to keep it fresh and new every year.   I admit, I was a little nervous to tell the mom on the phone: “I did find a great location I want to use.  It is going to sound crazy but, you know….I see ahead of time in my head, how I am going to work it. I’d like to do your Christmas shoot…..in the …..cemetery.”   <Mom laughs.>   And then she says, ‘That does sound crazy!  But I trust you!  I trust you!!  Every year, no matter what, it is all beautiful in the end.  You always work a miracle, and that’s why I keep coming back to you!’

Boy was I relieved, because I had nothing else to suggest by then!

And now, is their resulting 5×7 folding Christmas card.  Imagine…it was printed on heavyweight pearl paper, with a glossy finish. I SO wish, I could put one in your hand right now, because they were DIVINE! The color, the depth, and the shimmer  of the print beneath that glossy coat.  They just look flat here, compared to the real thing. But….still lovely….

THE FRONT OF THE CARD.
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OPENED: THE INSIDE SPREAD.  (Their name blurred for privacy.)

And the back, I always have fun with…..

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The mom LOVED the back!!  As always.  She said it was CLASSIC!  That’s what I mean…..she is so great to work with.  Her girls have grown on me from the very first shoot with them, and it has been beautiful  to watch them grow.  I know Little A will get easier in time.  I’m willing to bet, that extra spunk and spirit, will take her great places in life.  If all else fails, she always has those adorable dimples to fall back on!  Her big sister has a bright future too.  No doubts about it.

Until next year!!

(I’ll be sharing more sessions, soon, if you are enjoying these?  But I’d like to share some of Michael’s lettering work too, first. )

*  I hope you enjoyed a peek into this photo shoot!

(If you don’t want to miss what is coming up all over the blog, be sure you follow our page on Facebook!  *See sidebar, to follow us!)

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I am pretty behind in sharing our recent photography work.  I apologize about that.  I hope this special post helps make up for it.  I wanted to show you an adorable photo shoot I did with two beautiful little girls, we themed A Sweet Christmas.

I have done a photo shoot for Christmas with these sweet little girls every year, for the past 3 years.  When their mom first contacted me for our first consultation in 2007, I was ecstatic.  I knew the last name, because the husband has an established business in town.  So I was interested to find out what she was looking for.

We clicked immediately, and have been the best collaborative team, every since.  She has excellent taste, and a real appreciation for creative, custom and quality work.   I would offer nothing less, and I have pretty high standards for my own work. ; )   What she really wants every year, is photos of her girls, and a one-of-a-kind Christmas card, using them. She has a real flair for style, and is not a fan of the ‘traditional Christmas elements’, like everything red & green, etc. (Neither am I.) Although they do go to my church, so they are not that far from traditional Christmas. ; )  So anyway, it is one of my big creative gigs I take on every year, because the mom/my client leaves the whole planning up to me, from beginning to end!

We usually meet in the fall for a consult, and by then I’ve usually brainstormed an idea, and she is always thrilled with it!   I pitch to her what I have envisioned.  She gets anything we need for the photo shoot, such as particular clothing for the girls, etc.   Once the photo shoot is done, I allow her so many photos to choose for me to work with, and then I completely custom design their whole Christmas card.  She always places a big order for not only the Christmas cards I designed, but lots of prints of the photos I took.  So all of my efforts are well worth it, in the end.

It’s a really FUN project for me, because she not only gives me SO much creative freedom, from planning the photo-shoot that involves where we will shoot, what the girls will wear, and the kind of shots I want, to designing the whole card. But also because she APPRECIATES all of it so much!  She gets SO excited when her cards, envelopes and photos are in.  Giddy, even.  It’s really nice to have someone appreciate your creativity on that level.  And I love seeing and working with the girls and their mom, every year.

This year, our 3rd working together (2009), was the first year I planned their photo-shoot in my studio.  I had such ‘visions’ in my head, and even had a general idea of how I wanted to design the card, all before our consult took place, and photographed the girls. So I was thrilled that once again, the mom was on board with my idea.  The theme this year, was candy/sweets; a sweet Christmas. I had the mom looking for big swirly pops, but all she ended up finding was these marshmallow pops, which ended up being so much fun!

Just to let you know, I never use the names of children I work with on the net.  Or last names.  And I apologize for the watermark I have to splash across the images, but it’s important when putting images on the internet. So, just try to block out the watermark and see the image for what it is. Naturally, the watermarks across the middle are not really part of the image.

So first I’ll show you the images my client chose to work with, and then I’ll show you the card I designed for her.

Here are the girls, on my ‘swing’ in my studio, in their white nighties their mom bought just for this shoot.
They are 4 years old and 6 years old now.

This is the oldest girl.  She is so polite, very co-operative, and such a darling.
She has grown so much in the past 3 years, and is quite the little lady now.

Her little sister, is a real spit-fire!  What a doll, huh? She gave me a run for my money the first year I worked with her, when she was 2 years old!!  But I don’t quit easily, and it sure paid off that first year.  I know how to work with kids, if I do say so myself.  Sometimes, it just takes time and patience, all of which I needed that first year.  But when I want the shots, I’m going to get them. ; )   This year, now that the girls are that much older, they were both a dream to work with.

I love this photo, and I love the memory of taking it.  Her and I were belting out the song, ‘Party in the U.S.A.’.  It was hilarious, because you know how kids think certain words in a song are something other than they really are?  Because that’s what they think they are hearing?? Well, we were singing, and she’s telling me, “No no….that’s not how it goes.  It goes like this….“. <She sings.> I was cracking up.  Her mom was shocked I knew the song so well. lol

I took lots of shots, most especially because I was having so much fun taking them, and being with these girls.   So it was really hard to narrow down what we had, and choose what we were going to use for the card.  There were several we just HAD to use.  So once we figured that out, I got to designing the card, that was in my head.

I started with designing ‘digital paper’, or a background to work with.
I was definitely stuck on using pink this year.  I also knew I wanted to incorporate candy in the design.

So I ended up sketching out candy/sweets on paper, and refining the drawings with a sharp black marker pen.  Then I scanned them into my computer, and made them into digital brushes, to be able to work with them.

Here is the front of the card . . . .

This is how the front of the card came out.  It’s 5×7, with the fold at the top.

It opens up to this . . . .

This is the spread inside, when opened.  As you can see, I was determined to use several photos!!  Check out the middle photo–I thought it was so funny!! Their expressions are a hoot!  I really wanted to use the photos that showed their fun side, and personalities the most, because in the past, the cards I had done were very different from each other, but both very classic in style.  Here, I did blur their last family name, and the girls’ names, on the card for privacy sake on the internet.  But I loved the little piece of candy I put in between each name along the bottom of the card.

And the back of the card, is sometimes my favorite part . . . .

I always do something fun on the back, for this client. The mom is also really nice about letting me brand myself/my work on the back of their cards, however I want to.  All of my work is branded, but I go a little bigger on these, because I can, and because I’m so happy with them in the end.   Another thing to note about this card in particular, is that although these images above are the images I sent to have the card printed,  the actual card was printed in PEARL paper, with UV gloss.  (Unlike how flat in color they look here. )  So, the entire card printed,  has a real pretty pearl shimmer to it, when it’s in your hand,  and then has a glossy coat over it.  They feel so nice too! They were simply GORGEOUS.  And for some reason, they actually smell sweet! Which is a nice and appropriate touch, for this design in particular.

If anyone would like to see the previous years Christmas card (2007 & 2008)  for this family, I’d be happy to dig those up and share them too!!  As I said, the creative freedom this client gives me, makes it all such a joy for me.  I’m looking forward to next year, already.

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