Well it was the beginning of September, and for us here at the studio, that meant another photo session with little Samantha. Sami is a repeat client here at the studio and she loves to come and visit us to see what new props we have for her to play with and what new fun things we have for her to take part in. You can see Sami’s other session here. Our last session with Sami was a total hit, and this one proved to be exactly the same!

During this session with Sami we wanted to try to get some Fall and Halloween pictures, and she was totally cooperative. We got to use our Halloween “Baby Legs” with her, and they were perfect for her!

I think she enjoyed this scene the best, since she got to enjoy a delicious lollipop!

For this scene, Mom brought a wonderful orange shirt for Sami to wear to match the leaves and the scarecrow. She could not have been any cuter! I love her rolled jeans and her cute little toes sticking out!

In addition to Fall and Halloween photos, Mom and Dad wanted some more Spring and Summer scenes as well. So we dug out some of our picnic props that we hadn’t gotten a chance to use yet. I think Sami’s favorite new props were the watering cans, although she was very particular about where they should be placed in the scene, which was not always where the adults thought they should be placed.

For a girl who LOVES to play dress up and wear fabulous clothing, these next few scenes could not have been more enjoyable!

Mom wanted a few photos of Sami in her swimsuit from this Summer, so of course we were happy to oblige. The “swim cap” is actually a cute little hat that we have on hand, and it worked wonderfully for this. Sami was not as cooperative for this scene, it took a little bribing and some bubble blowing to get her to “smile pretty for the camera”, but you would never know it from looking at these photos.

One of the newest additions to the studio was a new fabric backdrop, and we could not wait to use it with Miss Sami! As excited as we all were to use the new backdrop, Mom and Dad included, we could not have predicted that the results would have been as stunning, modern, fun, and cute as they are!

The last scene we did with a very tired Miss Sami was using another pair of Baby Legs and an extra special sock monkey, that coincidentally matched the Baby Legs perfectly!

What a great session with a total cutie…again! We are definitely going to see Miss Sami and her Mom and Dad back in the studio again before the year is over. As always, we can’t wait to see what she has in store for us then!

This is the art piece that I created for this photo session for Samantha. I love the colors of this one and it gives off such a girlie feeling, perfect for this girlie-girl!

Here’s a video of some of the other images from Sami’s session:

It’s time to announce the winner of the Fall Harford and Cecil County Wee Cycle Child Portrait Contest.  It was a very difficult process to narrow the 1,241 entries down to 33 and then again down to 14.  Once I had the images narrowed down to 14, I solicited input from friends and family and I asked them to select and rank their top 5 images.  I counted up the votes and when all was said and done, we had a tie for first place.

To be honest, I wasn’t really prepared for a tie.  I didn’t have a plan as to how to break the tie.  Initially, I thought I would just look at the two winners and make an executive decision as to who the champion would be but when I looked at them, I couldn’t decide.  They were both cuties and they were both such a blast to work with.  Then I thought I would open it up to more voting but it could be a while before I ran into some people who hadn’t seen the images yet.  When I looked at the photos, I noticed that one was taken on Friday and one on Saturday and a light bulb went off, I would just have a first place winner for each day.  I emailed Blaney, organizer of the Wee Cycle event, and asked if this would be acceptable and she said it was a great idea.  So here are your winners, both will receive a $150 session with us, that’s a 2 hour session and $50 in prints.

Thanks again to everyone who stopped by our booth and talked to us.  It was a lot of fun meeting you and talking with you.  I hope you enjoy your child’s portraits.

Friday’s Winner

Saturday’s Winner

The 2009 Harford and Cecil County Wee Cycle was a great event. It took place at the Perryville Outlets and I hosted a child portrait contest.   I took portraits of almost 100 children in two days and shot over 1200 frames! Thank goodness for digital. It was so great meeting so many people from Harford and Cecil county and working with their children. There were a lot of smiles, some funny faces, some sleeping babies, and a lot of cuties. A lot of the sessions felt too short because the child was making great expressions and I would have loved to spend a full two hour session with them.

The portraits from the event are available for purchase at the links below.  There is no obligation to buy but to do so you may order them directly from the website and please use the coupon code “wee10″ to receive 10%  off a la carte prints.  The photos have had basic touch ups performed on them and all orders will receive a more thorough touch up prior to being sent to the photo lab and then will be mailed directly to you.

Friday’s Sessions:
http://www.shawngrimesphotography.com/photocart/index.php?do=photocart&viewGallery=1042

Saturday’s Sessions:
http://www.shawngrimesphotography.com/photocart/index.php?do=photocart&viewGallery=1043

I have narrowed the entries down to two babies (highlighted below).  After all the voting took place, they were tied for first.  We are still deciding amongst ourselves how to handle the tie but we will post a separate post announcing the winner (and the winner will of course receive an email from us).  The winner will receive a free two hour session and $50 in prints (a $150 value).

I made two videos, one for each day that I was taking portraits at the event, containing some of the highlighted portraits from the day. These are similar to the DVD slide shows we will be offering with our packages in the future.

Friday’s Video
Saturday’s Video

I also wanted to highlight a few of the portraits from the event:
I loved the tongue sticking out on this little guy.  He was such a funny little guy.

This little girl had one of the best personalities of the day.  She was sooo much fun both on and off the set.  Plus she was a great help getting her brothers to smile and interact with us.  After her portrait session, she was playing peek-a-boo with us outside while we were in the studio area.  She had us laughing so much.

This little guy was so cute sleeping in the leaves.  He was just so pleasant and peaceful sleeping.

How cute is this guy?!?!  His hat was great but then his expressions were fantastic.  He is also one of our portraits currently tied for first place.

This little guy’s Mom bought this outfit at the Wee-Cycle event just for his portraits.  I thought it was a great idea!  He just giggled and laughed at Mom and it was easy to see the close connection they have.

This guy had some of the funniest looks of the day.

She was such a sweet and happy little girl.  She is our other entry currently tied for first place.

I loved this guy’s outfit and his matching hat.  It went really well with the scene we had.  Oh, can’t forget his great smile too!

How much fun is she having!?!?

We had the wonderful pleasure and honor of shooting these two adorable guys in the studio a few weeks ago.

Landon, 4 years old, and his little brother Caleb, 2 years old, came with Mom and Dad for sibling portraits and individual portraits as well. They were very nervous and shy when they first got to the studio and so we had to get right to work with trying to put them at ease and find a way to get them moving. The first idea we had was to get out the finger puppets and have them play with those. It worked beautifully! Then we had them try running to Mom and Dad and were able to capture some great photos.

Eventually they warmed up to us and Mom and Dad were crucial to that. Dad played a wonderful game with them where Landon and Caleb called out names of different kinds of construction trucks and Dad would imitate said truck. It was a total riot, and took the pressure off of us a little to come up with the ideas that would work for them. Mom was also helpful with having the boys use yoga poses to get into positions we needed them to. The following photo features the boys in their “cobra pose”. How cute!

Of course we had to pull out the fingerpaint for Landon and Caleb too. They loved getting to paint on the floor.

Once Landon and Caleb got acclimated and became a little more comfortable with us and having their photos taken, they were excited to try each new “game” we had for them. We tried so many different things to get them involved and had to be quick thinking and quickly move from one activity to another. They were great sports about the whole thing and were excited about each new activity we introduced.

These little guys have wonderful, fun personalities and it was great to be able to see it come through in their photos.

Landon and Caleb were such a joy to have in the studio, we hope that we will get to have them back for another session sometime in the future!

Here are the art pieces that were created for Landon and Caleb’s photo session.

I am proud to announce a new monthly newsletter from Shawn Grimes Photography. This newsletter will include useful tips to help you create better snapshots of your family, fun things and projects to do with your photos, and tips to manage your digital files.  I will share my experiences as a professional photographer and offer ways to help you with your home snapshots.

In addition, each month I will share a special discount or coupon for services from Shawn Grimes Photography.

Feel free to forward this message on to your friends and family who might benefit from photo composing tips, fun projects with your photos, and tips to manage your digital life.

Rest assured that I will not sell or give away your email address.  This is list will only be used by me and will be a low volume email.

The Howes family came to our Aberdeen, MD studio from Columbia for portraits of the latest addition to the family, 6 month old Matilda.  Matilda was such a photogenic baby, even when she was unhappy she would smile right before she started to fuss (she didn’t like being on her belly much).

Matilda was all girlied up for this portrait, one of my all time favorites.  She loved the fluffy tutu and pretty necklace around her neck.  This portrait shows her lovely chocolate eyes.

Another girly portrait, Matilda takes a moment to smell the flower.

Matilda is a very happy baby and I think at least part of the reason is because she has such an awesome big brother.  Simon is almost 3 and he is so smart and so helpful with Matilda. He loves his baby sister.

Simon is a really smart kid and very well behaved.  Mom and Dad are doing a great job raising him and I can’t wait to see how Matilda turns out.

One of my favorite things about Simon is all the random facts he knows.  At the portrait session, he told me that the heart pumps blood through our veins.  How cute is that!

I can’t wait to see more of these two in the future.  They are an awesome family and so much fun to have in studio.

Unfortunately, the video camera was pointed to the side during their session so I didn’t get any video from the session.  I did put together a slideshow of their portraits though so you can see everything we got from the session.  In the future, you will be able to purchase DVD versions of these slideshows as part of your print package.