Tags: Mom of Boys Photography
Everyone wants beautiful photos of their little ones to display oh-so proudly throughout the house. But the process of getting professional photos of your little ones can be a challenge.
When Liev was born, the hospital in Virginia we delivered at had a wonderful woman available to do newborn shoots right there in the room. She took her photos, grabbed our email address and in a couple of days we had beautiful first photos of Liev right in our inbox. Talk about easy and convenient.
We were also lucky that the hospital in California where Silas was born had a similar setup. But let’s be honest…newborn photos are soooooo easy…your little one just has to lie there looking angelic. DONE! When Liev turned 18 months we wanted new photos. We still lived in Virginia, so we set up a photo shoot with a friend of ours, and, man, was it a COMPLETELY different experience. Lord have mercy!
Now, when I was little, a professional kids photo shoot meant my sister and I were dolled up in our Sunday best and taken to JCPenny’s for portraits. Thankfully, times have changed and portraits are just not done anymore. This is great news for parents because GOOD LUCK trying to get your 18-month-old to sit for a portrait (or maybe just MY 18-month-old). We opted for the “wild & free” route when it came time to do Liev’s 18 months photos. We ended up with wonderful, natural photos of Liev just exploring nature (though the family shots didn’t work out too well…haha…what are you gonna do?).
For Liev’s 18-month photos we chose a location that was an hour drive from our home. As luck would have it, Liev fell asleep in the car. When we got there, we had to wake him up and he was NOT HAPPY about that. For the first twenty minutes or so he was super grumpy. We couldn’t get him to do anything. He wanted to just wander around the park every once in a while, sit and play with the grass. Our photographer just started taking shots of him. He followed Liev around and let him be in control. I had picked up balloons at Party City hoping to use them in the photos somehow, and while Liev was wandering around, he decided to walk over and play with the balloons. We ended up with beautiful photos of Liev, and all taken while he was just being a boy, exploring the park.
I’ll admit, I went into the shoot with the hopes of getting a few family photos with the three of us, but like I said, that didn’t work out so well. We tried to stage a few shots but he was NOT having it. We did get one of him smiling with Adrian and me in the background, but that was the best we could do. This experience taught us that the easiest and most stress-free way to do photos of Liev, and eventually of Silas, was to just let him run wild in a beautiful open space.
This method is so incredibly stress-free. The only detail you really need to handle is what your little one will wear. Your photographer will tell you the best time as far as lighting goes. Then you can just sit back and watch the magic unfold. We brought props…I’m sooooo happy we thought to do the balloons. You can do fun umbrellas, their favorite toy, etc. My thought process is always “be over prepared”. I have brought lots of different things when we’ve done photos with the boys. You never know what’s going to work so it’s better to have several options.
When Silas was about two months old we decided to do photos of both boys together. My cousin Amber is an amazing photographer and luckily lived only about 30 minutes away when we lived in California. We went to a nursery near her house where she got the most beautiful photos of the boys. First, she got a few of them together. Then Liev just set off exploring the nursery. She followed him around snapping photos, and viola, beautiful and stress-free photos of our precious babies. Before we met up with her, I was looking through Liev’s stuff for props and grabbed his teepee tent. I’m so glad I thought to bring it because the pictures with the tent are my favorite.
Now that Silas is older and much more mobile, we plan to set up another shoot for the boys…maybe even Sam too (how cute would that be?!) and I’ll do it the exact same way. I love having these photos of Liev where he’s just wild and free. They show so much of his little personality…I want the same for Silas. Someday I’d love to have a proper “whole family” portrait, but for now having beautiful photos of my boys will suffice.
