Grady C., 3 weeks old | Portland Newborn Baby Photographer

Baby Grady is a big healthy boy at 10+ pounds in his fourth week of life!  He was very alert and strong throughout our session, holding his head up and looking right at me and the camera & lights and I even caught some baby smiles, what a cutie.  He is much loved by mom and dad and big brother Cole, who turns three in January.  These guys just relocated from the Bay Area to take advantage of all that Portland has to offer families!  Congrats :)

Bennett Family | Portland Family Photographer

This is the family that won my PDX Kids Calendar giveaway last month!  I must admit, however, that I felt like I had won a contest when they showed up in the cutest outfits ever--a palette of greys accented by warm pinks, purples, & reds, contrasting patterns, and beautiful textured fabrics!  There were also sequined boots involved... it's true! I loved meeting this family, especially mama Laura, who has a BFA in photography and a wealth of experience in "old school" fine art film photography.  Brought me back to the old days of developing film, using an enlarger, etc.  I went to this fantastic grade 4-12 arts magnet school in San Diego, and we had the best darkroom facility that I've seen to this day (and the best teacher!). I have always felt very passionate about all that stuff, but I have grown to love digital photography even more now.  There is something about all those chemicals that I never trusted...

PDX Kids Calendar Portrait | Portland Family Photographer

This past weekend I met up with Ali & Tabitha from PDX Kids Calendar to take a few photos to say "thank you!" for their help on a recent promotion & giveaway at www.pdxkidscalendar.com  They are pretty much celebs around these parts so it was really fun and exciting to plan a shoot for them. We chose two locations... first location is Sellwood Park, which is a gorgeous natural park overlooking Oaks Park amusement center, with a gorgeous view of the downtown Portland mini skyline.  As the kids warmed up to me, I took some larger group photos, and then I forced Ali & Tabitha them to pose with a taxidermied (is that a word?) squirrel named Mort that I borrowed from a friend.  I thought it fitting since their PDX Kids Calendar logo has a squirrel in it.  Luckily that didn't creep them out too too much and they allowed me to continue taking their pics at Nectar Frozen Yogurt Lounge in Sellwood afterwards. What a cute location for a photo shoot, and the staff at Nectar couldn't be nicer!  We had some pumpkin frozen yogurt, YUM. For most of the park photos I used my 50 mm 1.4 lens with no flash or reflectors, and in the yogurt shop I used my 35-70 with a Speedlite & umbrella on a light stand triggered by an on-camera master/Gary Fong LightSphere (sometimes master enabled, sometimes just used as a trigger). Fun day, gorgeous pictures!