Wildflowers Photography » family http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog Blog Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:22:20 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Twister & Waffles with the Parsons family! http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/twister-waffles-with-the-parsons-family/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/twister-waffles-with-the-parsons-family/#comments Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:59:36 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=5072 this is the parsons family, down for a visit all the way from friday harbor, washington!  sara and her hubby, sean, are college sweethearts and have been married for 11 years (and i can testify after photographing them that they are still giddy in love).  stella is 8, she loves to laugh.  jonah is 6 and all boy.  ava is 4, the baby, silly and loves to be barefoot.  sara is a photographer too but they had never had family photos taken and when she wrote me an email with the starting sentence “hi, my name is sara and i am your number one fan” i knew we would get along famously.  ;)   she said they would be near me for thanksgiving and would love to have a family session.  what stuck out in sara’s email more than anything was that “they were so thankful to be a family” which i thought was just plain inspirational.  not everyone can say that!   so, the parsons have a tradition of waffle breakfasts with lots of syrup and laughter so we of course had to keep the tradition rollin for the shoot along with a vintage game of twister for a little extra fun.  :)  and i feel like i gained some very sweet friends in the process…

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/twister-waffles-with-the-parsons-family/feed/ 22 “Papa, please get the moon for me” with the Kido family! http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/papa-please-get-the-moon-for-me-with-the-kido-family/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/papa-please-get-the-moon-for-me-with-the-kido-family/#comments Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:02:23 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=4717 this session was FUN!!!  :)  our theme was based on eric carle’s wonderful children’s book, “papa, please get the moon for me”… a very sweet book that tells the story of a little girl who peers out the window of her little red house every night and stretches and stretches to get the moon but can never reach it.  that was until she kindly asked her papa to get the moon for her… he built a very long ladder to reach all the way up to the moon to bring it down for her.  now i can just tell you that ryan and anna, the papa and mama of these little girls in this shoot, adore their daughters to the ends of the earth and i also know that if there was any way for them to reach the moon for them that they would do it.  but seeing that i couldn’t find a ladder long enough to retell this story exactly as it was told in the book, we did our best to build a set that would set the scene.  we painted a huge canvas in classic eric carle style, made a cardboard happy faced moon, donny built a very colorful and child-friendly moon-reaching ladder, and we brought out my very favorite dollhouse and gave it a fresh coat of red paint to be a tiny version of the house from the story!  we then made a cozy little spot right in front of it on a fun quilt perfect for playing and dancing and we had ourselves a little party.  it was wonderfully fun and i love that we were able to tell this classic children’s story but at the same time really make it personal for the kido family.  i have been blessed to be able to photograph this family for the last four years and am so very touched to continue to be in their lives and photograph their children.  thank you, kido family, for dancing your hearts out during this session; the love you have for your girls is so very joyful and incredibly contagious.  xoxo

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/papa-please-get-the-moon-for-me-with-the-kido-family/feed/ 34 The Comden Family at Venice Beach! http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-comden-family-at-venice-beach/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-comden-family-at-venice-beach/#comments Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:49:29 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=4600 one of the most lovely and relaxed family sessions i have photographed i do believe.  it was natural and it showed exactly the way they live their happy life as a family every single day.  playing at home, riding their bikes, skating at the beach and a whole lot of cuddling in the sand…

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-comden-family-at-venice-beach/feed/ 19 The Zimmerman Family & their movie night under the stars… http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-zimmerman-family-their-movie-night-under-the-stars/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-zimmerman-family-their-movie-night-under-the-stars/#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:31:34 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=4310 kelsie, the mama of this family and i had been planning this shoot for months and months.  the shoot was to take place on her and her hubby’s 10th wedding anniversary and it would be in celebration of not only the two of them but of their precious family and being just as giddy as they were all those years back.  the vision was for it to be a camp out under the stars, all cuddled up together, watching home movies playing on an old 8mm projector.  it took a lot of collaborating between the two of us (and a lot of other help from the men in our lives with the set-up and dragging all our favorite vintage stuff into the grove – thank you!) and it all came together.  once it was all ready, we didn’t have to force the kids to smile for the camera… they jumped right in that tent and rolled around and we couldn’t barely get them out!  the longer we stayed, the more fun it was… they danced in the late afternoon sun, daddy played his grandma’s ukelele and his guitar and had the whole family singing, and then when the lights got low we lit the lanterns, turned on the movie projector, got out the popcorn and they all curled up in that fancy tent and watched until there wasn’t hardly any light left in the sky.  my favorite part was how sad we all were to pack everything up and take it all down!  it is rare that when a shoot it over that no one want to leave (especially the kids) but we all were having so much fun that we wished we could have actually camped out right there.   so, happy anniversary you love birds and thank you so much for giving me the honor of being a part of this wonderful celebration.  i’m thinking we may need to celebrate this more often than every 10 years.  ;)

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-zimmerman-family-their-movie-night-under-the-stars/feed/ 19 The Long Family http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-long-family/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-long-family/#comments Wed, 25 May 2011 04:13:18 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=4268 i photographed the long family on our last night in round top, texas.  they had written me a few months back inquiring about a session and i just fell in love with them right away… they were california natives but, in their words, “we weren’t born in texas but we got here as fast as we could”.  a family after my own heart.  :)  they hadn’t had family photos taken since their boys were tiny and they purely wanted authentic, raw images of them just in the moment as a family… in the wide open country with the boys, jake & noah, playing ball and little lilly mae running wild.  it had been mostly overcast our entire time we were in texas but somehow on this evening, the skies just opened up and we all couldn’t stop talking about how the session just felt like it was out of a storybook.  more than the sunshine, though, this family just glowed.  they adored one another, the boys embraced their sister dearly, they hugged each other like it may be the last hug and they laughed whole heartedly.  the most beautiful part was just standing back for several parts of the session and just watching them play, not for the photo shoot but because that was genuinely them in their happy place.  shooting this on our last night in texas somehow made it the trip seem complete in the most beautiful way.  :)

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-long-family/feed/ 18 The Beller Family http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-beller-family/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-beller-family/#comments Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:17:19 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=3833 i had the wonderful honor of photographing the beller family… josh, michelle, weston and baby boy in the belly (arriving any day now)!  this sweet husband & wife duo are photographers as well but we actually had never met in person until the shoot – we had only admired one another’s work from afar!  i was a little nervous (photographing other photographers can be incredibly humbling!) but when they stepped out of their car and i saw that both our backseats were covered in crushed cherrios, well, needless to say, we became very fast friends  :)  they wanted to include maps and planes, two of weston’s loves, so we headed to the airfield and broke out our biggest sets of airplane arms and flew all around the vintage planes in the sunshine.  michelle was a champ in her stillettos, 8 months pregnant i might add, josh happily admired his lovely bride and weston just looked dang cute every second of the entire shoot – seriously, this kid is precious.  at the end, we camped out on the grass outside the airfield for a little picnic on the maps, the sun was, by far, the most golden i had seen it in months, and we just  soaked in every last drop of it.  i love this first shot of weston below… it was actually an outtake, just testing my light before we snagged the bottle out of this mouth, but i adore his intensity and how he is just hanging out on top of the world!

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-beller-family/feed/ 11 the conant family http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-conant-family/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-conant-family/#comments Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:56:16 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=3774 the conant family holds a special place in my heart.  this latest session was in celebration of beckett’s teeny, tiny new brother, brixton. welcome to the world, little man…

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-conant-family/feed/ 10 The Heathcote Family http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-heathcote-family/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-heathcote-family/#comments Sat, 08 Jan 2011 09:09:20 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=3610 charlotte is the sweet mama of this family and she told me that being able to do this photo shoot out in the beautiful sunshine was her dream come true!  leading up to the shoot, charlotte told me a bit about each special person in her family and i already felt like we were old friends by the time we finally met!   so, as i prepared for this post, i was trying to find the words to describe each one of them but i just found that nothing i wrote was nearly as genuine as what she wrote herself.   so, here they all are, in the beautiful words of a mother – charlotte’s family according to charlotte…  her husband, fred – “sacrifices in ways for our family that melts me and loves me with all of his heart.” and michael, 20 (the oldest of 7) - “loves BIG.” christian, 19  - “selfless.  feels deeply.” ethan, 15 – “when no one is looking puts his head on my shoulder.” matthew, 13 – “his smile lights up my day.”   seth, 12 – “sees the good in everyone.” lauren, 8 – “sweet like an angel.” & ella, 5 (the baby) – “dances around the house. she sparkles.” and yet, the most beautiful description of all was what charlotte wrote about herself, “i feel passionate about creating home.  all I ever wanted to be was a mom.  most rewarding, expanding, frustrating, humbling, noble thing I have ever done.  i love them with all my heart.” thank you, thank you, thank you charlotte, for sharing your beautiful journey as the very blessed mama of your nest.  i am most definitely a better mother for having met you. (photographed at the tierra rejada walnut grove.)

i sure love this kind of session where i can just dive right in with my heart.   :)

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-heathcote-family/feed/ 37 A few holiday highlights… http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/a-few-holiday-highlights/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/a-few-holiday-highlights/#comments Tue, 30 Nov 2010 21:05:23 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=3432 the holiday rush is in full swing!  i’ve been shooting a ton and not blogging nearly as much as i would like.  after the craziness settles down i have lots of wonderful sessions and news to share.   :)   so, here are a few recent highlights to hold you over a bit…

the kraake girls:

the welch family:

sweet little david:

AND…. lynne & daniel’s much anticipated “homespun” circus themed engagement shoot (definitely more to come of these!):

]]> http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/a-few-holiday-highlights/feed/ 7 The Ellis Family http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-ellis-family/ http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/the-ellis-family/#comments Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:08:17 +0000 Joy http://wildflowersphotos.com/blog/?p=3376 there was something magic in the sunshine at the farm the day of my session with the ellis family.   :)

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