The Making Of Peeper's Birthday Photos

Our friend M, who's taken all of our family photos to date, moved away this summer, and we were doubly sad to see her go - both because we were losing a friend (well, not really "losing" - there's always Facebook!) and because we were losing our photographer!

As Peeper's birthday approaches, I was really bummed about not having any professional pictures done to commemorate the occasion.

Then, as luck would have it, one of our brand new MOMS Club members, K, introduced herself and mentioned that she does family photography! I took a look at her work, and saw some beautiful pictures. When she mentioned that she was doing some mini-sessions, I jumped at the chance.

She had actually declared herself all booked up for the season a few days ago (she's leaving town at the end of the month for an extended visit with out-of-town family), but she was kind enough to fit us in this evening, before a full session that she already had scheduled.

So, before our apple picking adventures, I packed up a couple of changes of clothes (the outfit you see here - a birthday gift from the Anonyparents, and her Halloween costume) and a few props, and calculated how long we could stay at the orchard and still make it to the shoot location in plenty of time to get her dressed before K arrived.

As it turns out, we beat her there by about forty-five minutes, of course.

We were at a "center for environmental studies" that belongs to a nearby school district, and it is just beautiful, both for taking pictures, and just for hanging out.

There's a duck pond, an old wagon, some wooden bridges, bales of straw, woods, barns, a split-rail fence, big rocks, and lots of cool textures and patterns.

While we waited for K to arrive, we watched the duckies, and some other visitors let Peeper feed them some of the huge box of corn that they'd brought.

I'm loving these photos of her, but just wish the Solo cup in her hand were more photogenic!

I was a bit concerned about how cooperative she was going to be, but as soon as we got her dressed, she said "Wet's go take pichers!" (Hence the duck feeding photos) and when K (whom she's only met once, at a playgroup last week, and may or may not have actually noticed her, because she was too busy, you know, playing) started shooting, she went into total super model mode.

She let her lead her around . . . 

. . . and get her into position (Here, she's supposed to be showing us "how many" she is, but she's really not so good at "3" yet. I think we might have gotten some good shots of her signing "I love you," though.) . . .

and some of the shots I have the highest hopes for are ones that she totally did on her own. For example, we set her up to look over this fence, as you see below. Then she started peeking between the rails. If enough of her face was actually showing, I think those are going to be adorable.

I really hope that K actually caught her looking from this rock, and that her camera had the same lens flare that I have here.

We shot for about forty-five minutes, until K's next family arrived, and after we changed her back into "street clothes" (we'd finished with the Halloween costume), she wanted to take a few more with her widdle white pumpkin, so I stuck her up against the barn wall and tried to get her to show it to me, and then give it a kiss.

 

If this is what my crappy point-and-shoot, and very non-artistic eye, shooting from off to the side came up with, I can't wait to see the photos that K got!