Dan and Jess are both clients we have had the pleasure of photographing in the past. Dan is a personal trainer specializing in kettle bell training and Shawn photographed him leading a class for Dan’s website and promotional materials. We met his wife, Jess, when we first opened the Aberdeen studio. She came in to have some photos taken of her working with the kettle bells.

For this session, we were able to see them in a completely different capacity…parents and a family. Jess is pregnant with their second child and came in to the Aberdeen studio for maternity portraits. They also brought along another family member we had yet to meet, little miss Andrea, their almost two-year-old daughter. She is a total sweetheart, lots of smiles and very active. As active as she was, we managed to get her to cooperate a little more when we introduced the Smarties candies! She also loved the blocks we had, so much in fact, that this photo was completely unplanned, but completely captures Andrea’s wonderful little spirit and gentleness.

Eventually, Andrea wanted to be in every picture that we were taking. She is so photogenic and was such a joy to photograph.

This family is so incredibly fun and easy to work with. It really doesn’t feel like you are working when you get to spend time with people who are as easy-going as Jess and Dan. The three of them are a beautiful little family and baby number 2 will, no doubt, be a great addition to this family and loved tremendously.

Jess and Dan radiate happiness and pride as they await the arrival of their new baby. And it was an honor for us to be able to capture this in their maternity photos.

As a way to spark interest for Andrea in being in more of the pictures toward the end of the session, we brought out some fun things and let her play a little. These were the results.

Dan, Jess, Andrea, and Baby are a family we look forward to working more with in the future. And we are definitely looking forward to meeting Baby sometime early this fall!

Here is a quick video I put together of their session:

The Books visited the studio on July 5th for photographs of their family and children. The Books have three children – Trey – 9 years old, Allie – 5 years old, and Tyson – 5 months old, and they are a gorgeous family!

All three of these children have wonderful personalities. Tyson is one of the happiest babies we have ever met and just full of smiles and bounces and joy. Usually, we have to tell everyone else in the photo, “Keep your smiles going, and look at the camera, so that when the baby smiles, we can take the picture right away”; but that was definitely not the case with this little guy, he constantly smiled from the minute he walked in the door.

Allie is such a sweet young lady. Very energetic and full of life, and yet sweet and quite at the same time. She had lots of wonderful stories to tell us about her friends and going to Kindergarten and she was a joy to have in the studio.

Trey is the oldest of the Book children and is a very good big brother to his siblings. He was very helpful during the shoot with holding Tyson or modeling what we needed done. He even did a lot of things he didn’t think were very cool, all for the sake of the photo! Allie and Tyson are very lucky that they have such an awesome and fun older brother to look up to!

Mom and Dad are very lucky to have such a delightful trio of children. They have a beautiful family and are all so much fun! We were very fortunate to meet this charming family and have the privilege of taking their photos.  Don’t miss the video of their session at the end of the post.

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Cooper was the second newborn we had in the studio two weeks ago. Cooper’s Mom and Dad, Terri and Joe, brought him in to the studio to have his newborn photos done. We had scheduled a date with them right after Cooper was born, but due to some complications we had to reschedule. So when we finally got to meet little Cooper, he was about a month old.

Cooper is lucky enough to have our other clients, Kady and Kyan, as older cousins. Cooper is also lucky enough to have a Mom and Dad who couldn’t be more thrilled about this new addition to their family.

Cooper was a little fussy at the start of the session. However, a little bit of milk and a full belly helped cheer him up and for the rest of the session, Cooper was extremely cooperative and a joy to photograph.

Here are the art pieces that we created as a part of Cooper’s session package.

Here is the video from Cooper’s newborn portrait session in our Aberdeen studio:

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YouTube DirektCooper's newborn portrait session in our Aberdeen studio.

Two weeks ago we had the pleasure of photographing newborn Caleb. This little man was only 16 days old when he came to the studio with Mom and Dad, and the first of two newborn babies we would photograph that day. He was an absolute joy to have in the studio.

Even though Caleb was a little bit beyond the ideal window for photographing newborns, usually the first two weeks, he was great for the camera and pretty cooperative. It was also exciting for us to be able to put to use some of the new props we have for our newborn sessions. For example, this sling was a prop we had never used before and something we were anxious to use. It is a little tricky to maneuver and somewhat awkward, but produced wonderful results.

Mom and Dad were a treat to have around the studio. Dad had apparently pulled the overnight shift with little Caleb and was sleepy, but still a lot of fun. Caleb is the youngest member of this family, with two siblings leading the way. It is easy to see that this little guy is very loved.

The following is a photograph we have wanted to try for quite some time, and finally got the chance with Caleb. This uses Mom and Dad’s rings to demonstrate the union between the two of them and the little person they now share their love with.

This hat was another favorite of ours and Caleb is just so cute with the hat!

Here are the art pieces we created for Caleb’s package.

This spunky little guy is a repeat client here at the studio. Nick was here for the first time for Christmas pictures last December. This time Nick and his parents came for his 3 year old birthday portraits. Just a little bit of background…Nick is a very special member of my family. His Dad, Terry, is my uncle and he and his wife, Judy, are wonderful! They adopted Nick at birth and he is such a joy to our family! We always say that you would never know he isn’t really “one of us!” Blood relative or not, this guy is so much fun and definitely a valued and much-loved member of our family. Who couldn’t love this little man?

Before his session, Mom and Dad asked if they could drop Nick off at the studio and leave him with us for a while by himself. They thought that Nick might be more cooperative if we could do this. This sounded great, and we were fine with that, and curious to see if this would work. But we knew we would need to have ideas that were really entertaining to Nick and enough to keep him busy. We had a whole gamut of ideas we wanted to try out for this session. This is our first three year old we have photographed and we wanted to go all out! The whole session was a hit, for us and for Nick!

One of the first things we tried was putting on some tunes for Nick to, hopefully, dance to. We know that Nick loves music; I have heard him ask to hear John Denver songs over and over again while driving in the car and if you ask him what music he likes he will answer “Deep Purple” almost every time. These were the results of ‘dance time’ during the session. (This first one is my absolute favorite from the session, it brings a smile and a giggle every time I see it!)

We asked Terry and Judy to bring along any of Nick’s favorite toys with them to the shoot so that we could incorporate them into the session. Nick really likes his fireman uniform and that worked perfect with our wooden fire truck.

Nick loves bubbles, so we knew that using bubbles for a scene would be a must! Of course, I don’t think that either of us thought that this would turn out to be as much as a success as it was. We used the bubble machine and gave Nick his own bubble cup. As soon as the bubbles filled the room, Nick looked up in amazement and declared “I like bubbles!” He was so excited that there were so many bubbles surrounding him.

The next trick up our sleeve was to experiment with some fingerpaint. This was something we have never used in the studio for a session before, but we loved the results and will definitely be using it again in the future. Nick had a great time fingerpainting right on the floor!

Since the main reason for Nick to come in to the studio was for photos for his third birthday, we wanted to have a special scene just for this. Having just used the personal cake idea for Kady’s first birthday a few weeks prior, we knew we wanted something along these lines. We came up with the idea of a pinata just for Nick and decided this would probably be a lot of fun and produce a lot of great photos. It turned out exactly as we had hoped.

Nick, here is to three years on the planet as a wonderful little guy and a special part of our lives!

Here is a quick video we put together from Nick’s portrait session:

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Akira was a new client for us. We met her lovely Mom and Dad, Sonia and Lee, through Shawn’s mom, she and Sonia work at the same high school. This little cutie didn’t really take to us very well, she wasn’t pleased about her foreign surroundings and let us know it. We tried many tricks, including a milk break, but this little one could not be fooled. Regardless of her distaste with us and what we were trying to accomplish, we were able to get some great photos of her by herself and also with her lovely parents.

After a little milk break, Akira did fall asleep for a small bit of time and we were able to capture some really wonderful photos during this time, like this gem.

She really is such a beautiful baby. The red hue of her hair is gorgeous and those little features of her face, how peaceful!

Akira is really lucky to have such loving, caring parents. Mom and Dad were great throughout the entire session. It was a challenge for them I am sure, given how unhappy little Akira seemed to be while she was here visiting the studio. They were endlessly patient and tried everything they could think of to make Akira a little more comfortable. It really was nice to see cooperative parenting happening right before your eyes. These three make such a wonderful new family.

Little Miss Akira wasn’t thrilled with us, but was absolutely delighted to be put back into her car seat to get ready to leave the studio. So happy, in fact, that Mom and Dad decided to pull her back out to see if we could get some more photos of this happy baby, but, again, we could not trick this little one! She was having nothing more to do with the studio and our shenanigans. So Miss Akira, we hope that we might be able to have you back in the studio one day in the future, maybe when we are more entertaining to you!

Here is a collage I put together for their package:

Sami is one of our repeat clients and the camera just loves her! On this particular day, Sami arrived at the studio with her Mom and Dad in a yucky little mood. A poor stuffed pig was bearing the brunt of Sami’s dissatisfaction when she first entered the studio. We were worried that this would mean that the little darling would be uncooperative at best. Boy, were we wrong! Despite the mood she had when she showed up, this was possibly our best session with Sami to date.

Sami was so cooperative throughout the entire afternoon and charmed us over and over again with that delightful smile. We were able to keep her interest with a variety of props and things she hasn’t gotten to play with in the studio before. Perhaps Sami’s favorite props were the beaded necklaces, as she wanted to wear these in every scene! We were hesitant about the tutu, afraid that it would bother her or she wouldn’t like it being in her way. But, no way! She seemed to love getting ‘all dolled up’ to have her picture taken. She’s such a girlie girl!

This little girl is such a ball of joy and regardless of how much we doubted whether or not we would get to see that joy on this day, she spent most of the session just beaming! We wanted to make the most of her change in mood and try as many scenes with her as she would allow. This scene was one that we had wanted to try with Sami for a while and was a big hit with Kady a few weeks ago. I don’t know what it is about rubber ducks and bubbles, but Sami loved working in this scene as much as Kady did! (That tub must be way more comfortable than it looks!)

We were also able to use our new patriotic props and scenery with Sami just in time for the 4th of July. This photo is just too cute: the little pouty lip, the puffed out belly, jewels in tow, proud to be an American baby!

Again, she loved those necklaces and did not want to put them down! She will definitely be ready to celebrate on the 4th!

One of the scenes that Andrew and Nicole (Sami’s Dad and Mom) requested was a crabbing scene. Andrew’s father is a Maryland Waterman and crabber. This is often an undertaking for the whole family, painting and preparing pots to be put in the Bay, caring for the boat, and often the actual crabbing. We were able to find some great props to use for this scene including the net and a few good crabs. Andrew and Nicole provided the bushel basket and Sami’s custom-made onesie. No, friends, this is not supposed to look like blood! The red paint is sort of an inside joke among the family. Every year when it is time to paint the crab pots, with red paint, those helping wear almost as much paint on their clothing as they put on the pots. Andrew and Nicole figured it was about time that Sami donned her own red paint stained clothing just like the rest of them! I have a feeling this photo will be a family treasure for many, many years to come!

By the end of the session, we couldn’t believe how many scenes we were able to accomplish with Sami. She is always such a joy to work with and that smile can always melt the hearts of anyone in the room with her. We look forward to more sessions with Sami and her wonderful Mom and Dad, Nicole and Andrew, in the near future.

Here is the video from our day with Sami…

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