Eloise’s grandparents were visiting, so great lifestyle portraits with them were one of our top priorities!  And of course, I also wanted one big giant smile shot from Eloise, who obliged me with this one almost immediately after I walked in the door!

I love that we have this fantastic candid of Eloise reading with her grandfather.  I know when she grows up she’ll treasure it as much as I treasure a similar portrait of me with my Poppa!

Another great reading moment of Eloise with her momma.  Books will be big in her life–her baby shower was a book shower!

After spending some time inside we went for a walk to their favorite park a couple of blocks from their house.  I want a stroller as comfy as theirs–it’s incredible!

Gotta love a happy baby in a swing!

This is my favorite shot of the night–fantastic dramatic light, the mountains behind them, and a great evening walk.

(Edited to add–comments on this post seem to be broken–sorry!  The other posts are still accepting comments, though.)

]]> http://realphotography.com/blog/4580/feed/ 0 http://realphotography.com/blog/family-portrait-photographer-colorado-springs-eloise-part-1/ http://realphotography.com/blog/family-portrait-photographer-colorado-springs-eloise-part-1/#comments Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00:27 +0000 Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer http://realphotography.com/blog/?p=4556 I didn’t think we’d ever run into another Eloise when we picked Ellie’s name, but here we are just 7 months later and I’ve already met another adorable Eloise!  (And this Eloise is more authentic–she has a pug!  [I warned Heather and Leon that I might be sending a little turtle wearing sneakers along with their pictures to complete the picture.])

Eloise’s session came in two parts–the first afternoon here at the studio in Black Forest, was a bit of a bust.  So we tried again at her house in downtown Colorado Springs the next day and saw a lot more smiles.  Even though the first day wasn’t a huge success, we still had some keepers!

One of my favorite things to capture when posing a bigger family portrait are smaller sections of that group.  Miss Eloise was definitely a daddy’s girl and we had no trouble capture cute pictures of her with Leon that day.  He was the ONLY person she wanted!

There’s nothing quite as perfect as family portraits in that golden hour sunlight!

Yep.  Daddy’s girl.    Father and daughter walking toward the trees.

Father and daughter walking down our dirt road

]]> http://realphotography.com/blog/family-portrait-photographer-colorado-springs-eloise-part-1/feed/ 3 http://realphotography.com/blog/family-photographer-colorado-springs/ http://realphotography.com/blog/family-photographer-colorado-springs/#comments Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:46:12 +0000 Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer http://realphotography.com/blog/?p=4295 Kristy and her crew came to the studio to catch this time in their family before little Chloe outgrows all her baby-ness!

I absolutely love their outfits–what great bright colors–they look so fantastic together!  My two favorite photos  from the shoot are the whole family walking together–lots of little gestures of love going on there, and the shot of Jason being tackled by the kiddos.  I think that photo sums up parenthood!

]]> http://realphotography.com/blog/childrens-portrait-photographer-colorado-springs/feed/ 2 http://realphotography.com/blog/real-life-portraits-colorado-springs/ http://realphotography.com/blog/real-life-portraits-colorado-springs/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 03:59:26 +0000 Colorado Springs Wedding Photographer http://realphotography.com/blog/?p=3805 This spring I had an epiphany–I want to start offering sessions that capture families in the same way I photograph my own family.  No posing, no pretty backgrounds–just real life.  I love beautiful portraits, but the pictures I cherish the most are the snapshots that show our life.  Where we hang out, what we do, how we show our love at this very moment. In the future I’ll be offering two types of family portrait sessions–Real Art Portraits, where the focus will be on creating beautiful art with loose posing and carefully selected backgrounds; and Real Life Portraits, where we’ll focus on capturing the details of your life right now–no posing.

Danielle, Nick, and Ava were game to be my guinea pigs and have the first Real Life session.  We decided to capture a typical evening at their house–dinner, bath and story time.   I absolutely love the results and hope you do, too!

When I walked in the door, this is what I saw:

Pizza for dinner!  Danielle makes an amazing crust!

Love this shared family glance!

While the pizzas were cooking, there was some princess time.

And some chasing daddy time.

The motion blur here just makes me smile–this girl is on the move!

And then Ava showed me her room.

I love this–mouth half full, looking at her momma mischievously, head barely clearing the table. 

Babies and their daddies.

Bath time!

I’m going to say love again for the 20th time this post, but I *LOVE* how Danielle is looking at Nick here.  She likes him.  And I know Ava will love this photo when she’s older–it’s so fun to see photos of your parents where their love sparkles through!

Every mother spends a completely ridiculous amount of time dressing her children.  If girls knew what they were in for, they would NEVER dress up their dolls over and over and over…

Bed time!

Andrew and Ellie were our first couple to order an 8×10 traditional album (albums with just one image per page).  I love the images they chose for it and am a huge fan of how it came together–it inspired me to use a similar album for Ellie’s birth pictures!

Jessica and Joe ordered a metal photo cover album with a white patent leather spine, with a leather mini album as a parents album.

Lisa and Dave picked a cream leather with a textured brown accent strip for their cover.

Melissa and Dave chose a glass cover with metallic silver spine.

Monica had the absolute best light for her makeup application.

Melissa’s moment in prayer is one of my favorite reflective getting ready moments.

Jenny had the best “you’d never guess where she got ready” photos.  The “bride’s room” was the church nursery, but the light coming in from the windows allowed me to get really some really dramatic images.

Amber had the coolest getting ready room–her parents’ barn all decked out with vintage furniture!

And my favorite “oh my goodness, I’m a bride!” moment belongs to Mindy!

I almost don’t want to post this dress shot because now everyone’s going to want dress shots like this!  But here’s the deal–actual great places to hang a dress (and dresses that hang well without those ugly cardboard inserts) can be found in about 1 in 50 weddings.  In this case, we totally lucked out and there was a light we were able to hang the dress from right outside the barn window.  But it’s definitely a once in a blue moon shot!

They are too cute!

Amazing fields AND dramatic skies?  Total Traci heaven!!

See?!  PERFECT DETAILS!

The biggest hit at the wedding?  The ice luge!

Mark sang to Amber:

And then it was first dance time!

***

A behind the scenes shot (and yeah, I did wear that shirt to most of the Sept weddings–my maternity wardrobe is slim pickin’s). 

I love the look on Kevin’s mom’s face as she helped Carrie get ready!!

Try not to cry over the shot on the left!!  The flower girl was so cute crying after she didn’t get to walk down the aisle with her mom (or any of the other bridesmaids for that matter) but got it together beautifully and managed to look oh-so-adorable for her REAL walk!

Another set of flower girl shots I can’t resist sharing.  I looked over at one point in the ceremony and saw a line of red high heels with bridesmaids’ legs.  And then one little pair of red slippers with absolutely no one in them.  I found the missing feet:

WE LOVE HAPPY COUPLES!!

Carrie and Kevin win the prize for having our biggest wedding party yet!  Sometimes with giant groups you just have to gaggle it up!  This is a total favorite move on a hot sticky day! 

It’s not a party without cigars.  (Some day I’m going to have a party where we have friends over to play Risk while drinking whiskey and smoking cigars Winston Churchill style.  But I have to get this baby out of me first.)  [here's another trick with big bridal parties--sometimes you just crop most of them out.  ]

Right after we shot the wedding party and family shots, the rain arrived.  Not like “hey, it’s raining” raining.   But like “where’s the ark?!!!” raining.  We paused the portraits and Carried arrived to her reception in style…

This next shot annoys me a lot.  Carrie had specifically requested a shot of the bride and groom entering the reception from their point of view.  So I was gonna get that shot.  Come hell or really really high water I was gonna get it.  I got soaked trying to get to the perfect spot and then soaked following them into the barn.  My shots sucked.  Nic, who had been standing under cover the whole time, knocked it out of the park with this one.  I hate him a little bit.

After the rain clouds went on to torment other parts of the state, we went outside to get a few bride and groom portraits.  It’s really not fair that Carrie looked so good after all that rain!

The Botanic Gardens at Chatfield have a bunch of fantastic buildings.  The silo just outside the barn they used for the reception was particularly cool!  (This shot was from later that night, so it’s totally out of order here, but I’m just gonna live with it.)

The reception was a blast.  Instead of cake, they had Ben and Jerry’s cater  ice cream for the guests!!!  (these shots have nothing to do with that, I just felt it was important to mention the ice cream!)

Toasts…

They cut a small cake for the ritual and had the most messy cake-smashing I have ever seen (and probably will ever see)!!  Check out the woman’s reaction in this shot–her face is PRICELESS!

First dance time–I love the sweet shot on the left and then the hilarious dip/tongue-out/almost-fall shot on the right!

I love the blur in this shot.  Nic has a sharp version, so I almost tossed mine out for being imperfect, but I love the action and frenzy implied!  (I think that’s almost always the way with the shots you are on the fence about.  They’ll end up either getting trashed or they’ll go in the favorites folder and on the blog.  It’s just hard to tell sometimes whether you love or hate a shot!)

And then the dancing continued!

A huge amount of thanks to Carrie, Kevin, their family, and friends for making this wedding such a blast to photograph!

***

And a behind the scenes peek at Nicolas.  (The thing I like most about being pregnant is that I get to make Nic carry the extra camera now on account of it being too heavy for fragile little me.  Bwahahahaha.)

I love this shot of the girls!

We had some bad weather for our portrait time, but the wind was entertaining at least!

We were all so excited to watch how Kendra was going to fit her dress into the little sports car they had for the day!

The look on Kendra’s face as she goes in for the kill cracks me up!

Thanks so much Kendra and Chris!  You don’t have to wait long for the rest of the pics–your gallery will be up tonight!