May
14
2014Meet Marin: quite possibly the cutest 6 month baby girl I have ever seen.
Her perfect pixie hair.
Her drooling teething stage.
Her playful insistence on being allowed to move around. (Beautiful head wrap by Flawless Fashions & Gifts.)
Her precious and fierce reaction when she got a little hungry and did not like being forced to stay in one place.
Her love for the soft texture of my favorite blanket.
Sigh… Marin, you were just delightful.
I get asked all the time if rocking all these newborns to sleep makes me want another baby. The answer to that is a solid no. I love cuddling newborns, but I struggle with functioning on little to no sleep. I happy to hand those precious babies back to their mommies.
But this 6 month to 12 month old baby phase…. now this tempts me to have another. Or maybe adopt half a dozen. Oh, how I love being a being a Timeless Greenville SC Baby Photographer for these precious babies and just celebrating who they are becoming.
They way Marin looks at her mommy in adoration. 
The way she plays and smiles and is just so fun of personality.
These brief phase is the golden age of babyhood. These giggles, tears, smiles, and playful curiosity… oh, please, treasure ever single second. Cuddle that sweet teething baby and know it’ll all fade too fast. Cliche advice, I know, but it’s so true!
Looking for a photographer with an affordable baby plan to capture all these precious moments before they fade away?
Quiet Graces Photography offers 4 session baby plans for just $299. The four sessions can be used at any time during the first two years, with the exception of a newborn session: I recommend 6, 11, 18, and 23 Months. Each session is only about 45 minutes long, the perfect length of time to keep baby’s attention.
Baby plan customers receive 2 sets of 25 cards with their session fee perfectly suited for either birthday party invitations or Christmas cards. They’re also able to use pictures from every session to create a keepsake album of all those special moment in the first two years.
Interested in booking a baby plan for your 6 month old? Contact Quiet Graces Photography today.
May
07
2014This is the third installment in a series about choosing the best Greenville SC newborn photographer for your needs.
The first post talked about the minimum qualifications any newborn photographer should meet. The second post talked about the qualities you have that might make you a great match for me. This third post is going to show you how to judge a photographers work.
Why Should You Look at the Quality of Work?
There are four things you can discern by the images in a Greenville SC newborn photographer’s portfolio. Just from looking at their images, you can learn the photographer’s…
- skill with a camera and their retouching software
- skill posing a baby
- concern for the baby
- personal style of imagery
Today we’re going to talk about judging the photographers skill with the camera and retouching software. Next week, I’ll talk about the other three things you’ll be able to see in a photographer’s portfolio.
Skill with a Camera/Retouching Software
Are the images well exposed?
Exposure is the quality of capturing the world in the brightness that our eye sees. It’s partly a camera skill and partly a lighting skill.
Under-exposed is when an image is too dark with almost no light tones.
Over-exposed is when an image is too light with almost no dark tones.
A perfectly exposed image should have tones ranging from dark to light and looking very much like your eye would perceive the scene.
How Well is the Image Retouched Using Editing Software?
Photoshop (and other retouching software) can be a tricky subject. It can be used for dramatic effects such turning a piece of pizza into a super model, but more often it’s used for more minor things.
In newborn portraits editing software is used in the following ways.
- to remove red from the newborn’s skin to make it look creamy
- to remove blemishes and peeling skin
- to create the Photoshop Magic that results in those images would be unsafe for baby.
- to apply the photographers own effects that give them their signature style
- to smooth the remaining baby weight from the mother’s middle or face
An Image Case Study
Here’s a little case study. Zoey didn’t have a whole lot of blemishes, but she does have a raspberry angel kiss on her forehead. I personally leave these sort of marks unless asked to remove them. I’m not going to subject any of my mothers to pre-Photoshop scrutiny (because most of them didn’t know I’d done it!), however, every other type of edit was done on this image.
Post-processing can be not done at all, done tastefully, or overdone. It’s easy to see when an image has hand nothing done to it, but it’s not always so easy to see an over processed image so I’ll give you an example. The following image has had too many skin corrections applied making the baby almost orange and washed out and the skin texture looking like a Barbie doll. The range of contrast in the original image has been removed.
Compared to the original, we can see that the over-processed image hides the rich contrast/details and makes the baby look plastic.
I hope that you’ve learned a bit about judging your potential newborn photographers skill with her camera and her retouching software from this post. I’ll be covering the three other areas that you should judge a photographer’s work by in a later post.
If you love what you’ve seen of my work and would love to work with me, contact me today to get your due date on my calendar!
May
05
2014This kid. From the top of his blond head to the bottom of his dirty cast-ed left foot is quite possibly the cutest kid I’ve ever met. He loves his “blank”(et) and his “Baabaa” and he wants the individual attention of bedtime to last for at least half an hour. “Sing my Jesus song, mama.” “Sing great grace.” “Guggle me.”
I pulled out the camera to capture this little one in his dark room so I don’t ever forget and hopped in a few pictures with him as well. The photos are super grainy and slightly out of focus because of the darkness, but to me these are the same qualities that memories have.
Apr
30
2014My sister is expecting her first baby. The other day she asked me about the best books for moms to read. I rattled off a few, but for her sake (and yours!) I’ll include only the best books to give to moms right here 🙂
These make great Mother’s Day or Baby Shower Gifts!!!
Books Every Mom Should Read
This book helps moms stop comparing their worst moments to their friends Facebook highlight reel. It debunks the myth of the perfect mom with laughter.
Lisa-Jo shows you that each mom is a super hero just for showing up everyday. Her celebration of being present in the chaos is refreshing.
Books to Help you Love your Children Better
Learning to express love for my children in the “languages” they best hear is my first defense against discipline problems. When they feel deeply loved, they don’t act out nearly as often.
I read the initial Boundaries book on the recommendation of a friend and it has really shaped me as a parent and I can’t wait to read this one.
I’m still only about halfway through this gem because I’m just soaking in all the rich truth. But seeing the value in the mundane is something I struggle with and it’s also somewhere I need to grow to love these little people more.
Books for when You’re Overwhelmed
What I love most about this book is the vision for an mentor mom to come alongside the desperate new mom and train her to love her kids. I think that middle aged women really treasure helping new moms, if we’re humble enough to seek them out.
I have never laughed so hard in my life. Rachel lives a life similar to mine with so many little ones and she makes me laugh myself into both repentance and action. The chapters are short enough to read one while your kids melt down outside your bathroom doorway.
Books on Disciplining Children
I know disciplining children is a touchy topic and there’s clearly more than one way to do things… but these are the methods and books that really resonated with me and my little ones.
Ginger Plowman helps give a framework for teaching your children to obey. I think reading this book at the same time as Give Them Grace will help temper this books step-by-step directives.
Elyse Fitzpatrick completely knocks over all your preconceptions about grace/discipline as she helps you develop a method for continually sharing the good news with your children. Those who love to read and think about the implications of applying theology will really resonate with this book. But those who don’t enjoy that as much should pair this with Don’t Make Me Count to 3.
If you have a strong willed little one who isn’t responding to discipline, Cynthia Tobias helps you understand how your child ticks. As a strong-willed mama of a strong-willed little girl, this book nails us both. I’m not even done with it… but I keep dying laughing over accurate descriptions of who I am.
Apr
28
2014
So Aeralind caught a lizard: a baby 5 lined skink to be precise. This is the process of two science nerds raising 3 new science nerds. Capturing animals, growing a garden, answering endless questions, and letting them get dirty. Education at it’s finest, eh?
