Stoltzfus Family - 11.8.08

Derek, Abby, & Kailea are dear friends of ours and requested some family shots. It's always special doing good friends portraits, but this was especially fun since I did their pregnancy portraits last fall. Now, Kailea is 8 months old and has the longest hair I've ever seen on an infant. But I'm not surprised...Abby is a phenomenal hair stylist (thanks for the make over last winter, Abs!) This was also extra special because Abby's parents just moved to Lancaster a few months ago...all the way from Hawaii. They are enjoying their little granddaughter immensely and love the fall colors around here. Diane, Abby's mom, told me she has to get used to the way we dress. "What do you mean?" I asked. "Well, you all wear clothes around here." I didn't know what to say...and then we all burst out laughing. Her husband quickly explained that coming from a tropical climate requires a different wardrobe than living in a region that experiences cold weather for half of the year. I knew what she meant, just wanted to give her a hard time:) Thanks for a great morning, everyone. Here's a few favorites...

Whatever it takes...

When I'm shooting family portraits with small children involved, I am willing to do just about anything (I have my limits!) to get them to look and smile at me. Saturday, I had a photo session downtown by Central Market and Eric snapped some shots of me standing by a really smelly dumpster, waving a big cardboard produce box around to get little Kailea's attention. I think it worked...I can't even remember :) The adults thought it was funny anyway...

Hostetter Family -11.2.08

Josh & Voni and their kids were the other half of our Sunday afternoon photo shoot. I talked with Von this morning and she said it was a lot of fun for her to be on the other side of the camera too. It's good for us to know how our clients feel :) Here's some fun shots for ya...

Our Family

I'm learning how much fun it is to have your pictures taken by a professional photographer more and more as we are growing our family. Eric can set up a nice "self-timer" shot of him and I, but with Malakai added it's a different story. My dear friend, Voni (who, if you've been following my blog from the beginning you would know is a huge part of the birth of Radiant Images) took our first fall family pictures. Thanks, Von for capturing our family's love for each other! You are such a gem and I love you!We decided to swap services now that we've got little ones. Voni just had her second child, Zechariah Starr, almost three weeks ago and her daughter, Sela, is 19 months old. We met Josh and Voni at County Park for a fun afternoon with our families. It felt so backwards to be on the other side of the camera posing and being told how to stand, place your hands, fix your hair, etc. Now I know what I put all of my clients through! And you still come back to me :) After our family shots were done, Eric and I hung out and took some of just Malakai. He was diggin' all of the leaves...

6 Kids on a Saturday Morning...

Well, not everyone was excited about getting up early and not sleeping in on Saturday morning to have a photo session, but we got a few fun ones of this clan. Preston is the youngest (14 months) and just wanted to run around the yard and was not happy at all to just sit. I mean, walking is so much more exciting anyway, right? So his cousins tried to distract him as much as possible with pumpkins and balls and tickling. Here's a few favorites from our morning.