This question has come up a few times lately in family sessions with children who are over the age of two.  It seems everyone has already been trained by this age to “say cheese” when a camera shows up.  I playfully mention they must not have read my blog yet!

   I guess looking into the camera and saying cheese or anything else, really….it just doesn’t capture who we really are.    

I always try to talk to parents ahead of time and let them know not to worry about trying to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time.

 I let them know I don’t really care if the children look at me at all.  Eventually, they do end up looking at me…I’m pretty funny sometimes.     

Mostly I like to spend some time getting to know the kids I’m working with until they trust me enough to look at me or to play around a bit with me.

Ultimately, I want the experience to be a good one for everyone–especially the children.

    I recently heard of a dad who chose not to come to the session with me because of his childhood memories of his family’s portrait sessions.  wow.   

This is my goal–to create a generation of children who grow up loving the memories of their family portrait sessions. 

I’ve found that the families I photograph year after year are building these kinds of memories and relationships with me.  Every year their images seem to get better as the children and I build on our relationship.   

Okay, so I got a little off track there….   

 I certainly don’t walk around showing my teeth with a static smile on my face….I’m sure you don’t either.  

So please, don’t say {cheese}!    

Hang out, give kisses, tell secrets, tell jokes, talk about stinky underwear (Thanks for that one, Tim!  evidently it’s from the Chipmunks movie), blow bubbles, eat cookies, eat ice cream, play in the fountain, hide jelly beans in funny places (images coming from that one soon!)….anything but look at me saying {cheese}. 

 Here’s an example of “look at Stacie and Say Cheese”

    And a few examples of just hanging out:   

I know, I know…it almost seems cliche to have a family portrait session at Shelter Gardens…but there’s a reason all those photographers are there jockeying for position nearly every evening.  Sometimes everything just falls into place - perfect light, perfect white dresses, plenty of bug spray, and Voila!  A really fun and magical photo session.  I’ve known these girls since the youngest was 5 weeks old.  One great thing about being a children’s photographer is getting to see the children grow up!     After we finished up at Shelter Garden, we hopped in our cars and drove to the small sprayground at FlatBranch park.  WOW!  The light was fantastic and the girls had a BLAST playing in the water.  I now want to end all photo sessions this way!  (Thanks to silverbox photographers for the great idea!)     

What was it about this 5 month old that made me fall in love with him? (enough to think ever so briefly about having more children…)

 Was it his instant smile? 

   His jowly cheeks?

   His gorgeous smiling blue eyes?

   Maybe it was that hint of red hair that reminds me of my own baby (who just turned 4 {aaack!} last week)?

   Perhaps his ability to discreetly cover himself during his nude shoot?  Or the fact that he didn’t pee or poop on the backdrop?  (which, mind you, is NOT a big deal in this studio…it’s certainly more the norm to be peed on than not when you’re working with naked babies!)

   Well, whatever it was….I just fell for this guy (I like his mommy, too!).  The feeling seems to have been somewhat mutual….I’ll include this email testimonial I received from his mom days after receiving their cd of images.

 ”You are not just getting your pictures taken.  You, and whoever is lucky enough to be with you, get to participate in the creation of art!  Stacie creates a calmand fun atmosphere where she actually captures the very essence of your child (Ethan has about 50 faces and really she brought out every one).  As students we almost let the cost scare us off but I am so glad that we begged all of our family members to pitch in, and after the session I could not help but feel that Stacie did not charge enough.  There is no clock card punched when you walk into her studio - you are just there for however long it takes - and you can tell that she takes her time going through each image (cropping and transforming). She will even help you out after you get your pictures if you want to play with any of them.  If you are thinking about capturing a moment in time with you and your family this is an investment you can not pass up, why pay less and be disappointed when with Stacie the only problem you will have is deciding which pictures you want to frame =)” 

Thanks Karen! -stacie

This afternoon I had the distinct pleasure of playing around with a very old soul two week old baby.  I invited him up to my new studio so I could play around with my lights and try out a few things.  His mom was a super sport about it all since she was immediately peed on….and because she’s my friend….well….the show must go on, right?  I guess I should have all my “models” be sure to bring a change of clothes along to their session!  A big thanks also goes out to my new friend Annie who helped out by taking notes on the lighting set-ups we used.  (yes, Jane…I’ve finally got some notes from a shoot!)

Here are a few of my favorite shots:  this first one just makes me say, “how old IS this guy?”  He looks like he’s been here for forever.

The other most amazing thing about this guy….at two weeks old he was pushing up on his hands and holding his head up and then…..voila!  He rolled over!  We all clapped and cheered…and stood closer to the ottoman!

okay, I just have to say this again….I truly have the best job in the world!

-stacie

Okay, so I don’t quite have the flow of this blogging thing yet!  The new studio has kept me pretty busy and I’m trying to figure out when to get these blog posts in as well!  Being busy is a good, good thing–don’t get me wrong there!  A few weeks ago I had the most amazing week.  It began with a great newborn/family session in the new studio:

Soon I hope to have a slideshow feature so you can see more of the images from this shoot—it’s a great example of the capabilities of the new space.

Two days later I got to photograph the amazing birth of Evan, a 10.5 pound baby! Fast and beautiful (especially since I was using my new light with the “beauty dish“) It’s always an honor and a priveledge to be so close to the beginning of life.

And to finish the week off, I was asked to photograph my good photographer buddy Jane Lavendar’s union ceremony.  It took place on the top of the bluff at Capen Park at sunrise.  It was a beautiful ceremony full of love, friendship, kleenex at the appropriate moments and SONG!  All day long I found myself singing the ending song:  “I can see clearly now, the rain has gone…”

Here’s Jane and Sharon singing along:

What a week!  I think I have the best job in the world!

–Stacie

An amazingly fun, stress free photo shoot!  I should also mention we were at Shelter Garden, had a picnic dinner and a bottle of bubble solution.  I think there was also a promise to eat the ginger bread house if things went well….The evening was the first dry night in what seemed like weeks!  It was such a perfect evening for a picnic and for taking pictures.  This is a really fun family and I happen to know them all well.  Both sets of grandparents live out of state but come to visit often.  The family wanted to capture the overlapping visits this time and I think we did a remarkable job of capturing the love this family has for each other *and fun* they have together. 
  
This is one of my fav’s of the boys.  
 
You can just feel how much these guys love each other.

The middle image is Javier holding a HUGE chunk of smoked gouda. (I told you it was a good picnic!)

Love that bubble solution! So often, at a photo shoot, the bottle of bubble solution becomes a source of a power struggle….so I don’t pull one out very often. In this case-I couldn’t be happier that I had one with me.

So much for a grand announcement!  I have moved into a new studio on the corner of 9th and Broadway in downtown Columbia!  Yesterday, I invited two wild and crazy boys (and their fabulous momma) up to the new digs to help me work out the new lighting set up.  Dakota and Sage burst out of the elevator sporting their new purple and fuscia mohawks!  I can’t think of a better way to christen the new space than working with these two bundles of energy.  We had an absolute blast and here are a few of the shots to prove it.  While shooting the “subversive literature” rack, my friend Scott happened to be having coffee at the Coffee Zone and hollered out for us to put the boys on his massive bike.  I think they thought they had died and gone to heaven.      

In the past week, Isaac (our 3.5 year old) has captured (for very brief visits) 3 tree frogs and a toad.  The coolest thing about the tree frog was getting to see it’s throat blow up like a balloon when it “chirped”  Wow!  Yesterday he discovered a cocoon (egg?) of spiders just hatching.  It was amazing to see the hundreds of tiny -pin head sized- spiders all clumped together and then within hours they had constructed the most amazing ‘web highway’ all around the stump circle we have around our catalpa tree.  Just now, he brought me this lovely toad and I got a chance to take a few pictures this time.  Enjoy!       

I am so grateful to live in Columbia, MO.  Yesterday was so full of fun activities to do with my family!  The university had several different activities going on all day.  We could only go to two of them, missing the black and gold game.  We started by going to the Physics department open house where we marveled at so many cool exhibits that we could touch and explore, including the archimedes principle and a variety of examples of how different types of waves travel through space.  Next we enjoyed a cool and misty and sometimes rainy walk through campus to get to Adventures in Education hosted by the MU Graduate School as a part of Graduate Education Week 2008.  A big Thank You goes out to all the students and faculty who put this together.  We learned a LOT, had a bunch of FUN and got to eat free Icecream…what could be better?  Our favorite exhibit was, oddly enough, the one about inserting an arterial stint.  WOW, fascinating stuff!  Isaac also really liked that dog skeleton showing all the blood veins.  Linda and Joseph enjoyed learning about the green glowing pigs.  Also pictured in this collage are the greenhouses at MU–I had to put them in here as Linda told us this was the site of her decision to go into education instead of horticulture.  I’m glad for the difficulty she experienced in that greenhouse class…otherwise, who knows if we’d have ever met…

But, aside from all that really cool sciency stuff….the most fun we had was noticing all of the different types of manhole covers there are - on campus alone! We are very excited to start exploring the differences around the city, state, country…even the world! I see a children’s book in my future…

With everything else happening on the site, I forgot to get back to posting this image.  Several people have asked about it, so here it is—a beautiful image of one of the Graham twins’ hands.  I just love the way it’s all spread out!

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