My Own Family | Holiday Pictures | Do it Yourself Style

Hello everyone!
The weather is cooling quickly here in Washington and the sun is setting very early.  I've been planning our holiday card photo for a long time now and most of the details came together easily.  For the many fans I have on Pinterest, we have been pinning Christmas tree photos left and right!  Some with snow, some clearly taken in September (short sleeve outfits and a warm golden glow!), some that are heavy with props, some that are simple and just the family.  Now I love a fun prop-heavy portrait session, but I became a photographer specifically to benefit my children.  Most children don't like a stressed out mom, or coming to an unfamiliar environment filled with cool things they are told not to touch.  And mine are no different.  So for my family photos my own motto is to keep it simple. 

I let them wear clothes they already know.  I knew my daughter would wear pink, and I helped her choose and black.  I knew we all owned coats that are partly black or grey or both.  A local Christmas tree farm agreed to allow me to take photos.  We happened to also get a dog that week and they were okay with that too!

I set my camera up and took a LOT of test shots without me in them.  The kids are used to looking, but they often make silly faces, which I won't see until I get home to edit.  So it was imperative that I take a lot, try and get some good faces so that I would have some to swap out with the silly faces they would make later.  As you can see (the bottom right) he enjoys making faces! 

My husband David was great at gathering them around getting them to smile for me.  I set the camera's timer and gave myself 10 seconds to get from my tripod to the set up.  It worked out pretty good.  It's not as good as it would be for a client.  Nothing replaces having a person be able to make last second adjustments! 

Some of my daughter's pictures looked better in black and white (middle right) so I tried out some snow overlays to try and play up the frost that was on the ground.  Just something for fun.

And at last, a new picture with just David and I!  Every couple needs a new photo every year! 

 

 

So thank you for visiting with my family! 

For more information on family portraits please visit www.ndrobbs.com or leave a comment here.

Little Miss W | Puyallup Childrens Portraits

Little Miss W came for the annual portraits and this year it was all by herself!  What fun we had!  Fake snow, ornaments, a bunch of portraits taken with an emphasis on make believe.  Here are the top 10 pictures as chosen by her parents.

 

Because of the weather, we set up a little studio area in my living room.  Thanks to my own kids, we've collected a few things to take pictures!

 

And the ballerina takes a bow!

Look at those boots!!

I think little girl smiles are precious!

 

See, wasn't that fun?  Thanks for visiting with us!

 

 

For more information about family portraits or child portraits in a comfortable setting, please visit www.ndrobbs.com or leave a comment here.

 

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

The S Family | Holiday Family Portraits

Come enjoy a few photos with the S Family.  The wonderful people at Hillside Tree Farm were kind enough to allow us to do this session.  And what captures holiday pictures like a Christmas tree farm?

 

 

It was so very cold that day!  Mrs. S had to keep warm with a blanket and Mr. S!

 

 

Yes, even the dog got under the blanket!

 

 

Thanks for visiting with us!


For more information about family portraits please visit www.ndrobbs.com or leave a comment here.

Thanks!

 

Business Portraits | Networking for Small Businesses

This year I've begun expanding my business through networking and not advertising.  Why not advertising?  Ha ha, I have lots of reasons why.  But why networking?  Because it makes the most sense for me and what I do best!  This is my year to meet people.  All of my kids are in school and on the same schedule.  My week days have new large chunks of time I can use differently than I ever have before! 

Two days a week I spend an hour or so meeting with two groups of small business owners.  A common theme kept coming up - they all needed business portraits, or "headshots."  Normally I offer this service to an entire office at a time, 5-10 people.  How could I help these new contacts?  Why not a mini-session format? 

That's what we did.  With 5-10 minute sessions, we quickly got a minimum of three great business appropriate portraits.  So please enjoy these new friends with me and I will introduce each one with a link to their businesses as well.  If you would like more information on any of these folks, let me know and I'll introduce you!

Networking in Lakewood

Sherry Music
Sherry Music, Virtual Assistant

James Fowler
Sound Retirement

Vonna Cowen
NirVonna Custom Embroidery

Julia Maxwell
Julia K Maxwell, Counselor

Ty Belknap
Intra-Designs

Fay Ainsworth

Dave Robbs
Waymaker Consultants

 

Northwest Networking

Lori Poulin,

The Key 2 Green

 



Nikeyla Shaw

Responsible Contractors

 

 

 

 

 

Terina Bainter
Clutter Cutters

 

 

 

 

Mary Fulton

AdvoCare

 

 

Beth Anderson
Making Cents Inc

 

 

 

 Thanks for meeting my new friends!  I'd love to introduce you to any one of these people.  I've really enjoyed getting to know them, their businesses and their backgrounds.

For more information about business portraits please contact me directly.
Thanks!

 

 



 

The L Family | Olympia Family Portraits

I love meeting new friends!  Mr. & Mrs. L would be visiting family in the Olympia area during their kids' fall break and wanted some fall, Washington pictures for their visit.  Washington definitely delivered!  We had sun, rain, wind and colorful trees!  Only a few muddy knees and everyone stayed mostly clean.  Olympia isn't my usual stomping ground, so we picked our locations through aerial views on the maps.  I must say, Eastside Olympia is beautiful.  The parks we found, the lush grass and trees were perfect for the visual contrast we were creating.

So please welcome The L Family!

Everyone needs a picture with Dad!

 

And little brothers, do they add or distract?  Probably both. 

Little Miss L loved having her photo taken and was ready for anything I asked her to do.

 

 

At one point we had to run for cover from some sideways rain! 
Thank goodness for a beautiful city park!

 

 

Who would you rather meet in a park?  This handsome 4 year old (left) or a 4 year old being The Flash (right)?  I think either one would be fine with me.

 

 

Yes, we did manage to get all four together.  Even if the wind tried to take Mrs. L's hair a different direction and young Mr. L had another face in store for me.

Quick, cross the street and do something cute in the middle! 

And ending the hour with some sibling love...

Thank you for visiting with the L Family!  For more information on seasonal family portraits, please visit www.ndrobbs.com or leave a comment here.  Have a great day!

Shantel | Senior Class of 2014 | Graham Senior Portraits



 

I am so excited to finally share Shantel's senior pictures publicly!  Shantel requested senior portraits way back in August and was all set to do them a few weeks later in September.  But the threat of rain had us pretty nervous.  I can normally shoot portraits in light drizzle, but this was monsoon, rain an inch in an hour type of rain.  I'm so glad we were able to reschedule for the next sunbreak, because this was perfect weather for Shantel!

 This lovely Graham-Kapowsin senior just oozes sunshine anyway.  There was no way to have her portraits done in the rain.  Her dad accompanied and even assisted during our two hour session among my secret locations.

 If you know Shantel, she'll give you the story of one of our great locations and how we even got good lighting advice from a stranger!

 And if you know her, you know that this picture below is NOT her normal persona.  This girl can laugh like no other!  I don't think I've ever laughed this much or this hard with a client.

 

Graham is full of great locations for country girls, right Shantel?

Some new stores have moved into our area, which gives me the opportunity to find brick walls without leaving town, ha ha.  And do you love her shoes here??

 

 

 Thanks so much for visiting with Shantel's senior session and leaving her some encouraging words.  I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know her and her family over the last six weeks!

For more information on senior and family portraits in the Graham area, please contact me over email or leave a comment.