The Canavan Family | St. Louis Family Photography

Posted on January 9, 2012

Over Christmas break I got to photograph a family from my church and it was such a pleasure! I grew up with Liz and Carolyn but haven’t really seen them in years and years. Now Carolyn’s a mom and Liz is on her way! It’s SO much fun to see old friends become parents! Little Ellie was adorable (we’re totally buddies now!) and I had so much fun watching this family love on her! Grandma, Sara, asked me to come over for just a little while and capture them, as they are. Which is of course the best kind of session! Casual and relaxed with some quick portraits thrown in!

Thank you all for letting me come and get a peek into your world! Liz… I hope to meet that little man soon! Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy!

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Jodie&Chris LOVE LIGHT | St. Louis Photography

Posted on January 8, 2012

Oh my gosh I don’t even know where to start! Do you ever have weekends that just FEED YOUR SOUL? Times that fill in the gaps you were missing so that you return home feeling more solid and ready to tackle the week? That’s what the last 48 hours were for me.

It started Friday night with the BEST DATE EVER that Chris gifted me for Christmas. It started with FREE baby sitting (all night!) and a Love Light session with Kim! I’m not sure if you guys know this but I kind of invented this form of photography. We were even published for it and now other photographers are using my idea around the country! It’s one of my most proud accomplishments and I’ve never gotten to experience it myself! So this was HUGE for me but even better that Chris planned it because he kind of hates being in front of the camera!

And you should have heard Katie and Kim yelling at me! I was the WORST client! Seriously BAD. Leaving the session it hit me though, I think I was verbalizing what most clients are thinking! “How does my stomach look? Can you see my fat rolls? What about my neck? Do I have two chins or one? Are we good kissers on camera? We’ve never kissed like this in front of anyone! How does it look?” And oh man the list goes on. I couldn’t shut up! It was uncomfortable and HARD to be on the other side of the lens! Katie and Kim were doing a great job, it was just ME! Every time they’d get us posed just perfect I would burst out laughing! There are so many shots of Chris looking at the camera like he wants to kill me and I’m hysterically laughing! HA!

Ultimately we had an incredible time and I feel SO blessed to have Kim and Katie do this for us for free! THANKS FRIENDS!

From our Love Light we met our BEST friends out at our favorite restaurant (Trattoria Marcella) for dinner where we had awesome conversation, the most incredible food and for the first time ever I found a wine I actually like! I so rarely drink alcohol because 1. I hate the feeling of getting tipsy/drunk 2. I have massive control issues so the thought of my body losing control bugs me and 3. I hate the taste of it all. BUT man, did I like riesling wine! Then from there we went to Cyranos for dessert!

To end the night we checked into the most gorgeous suite at The Ritz!

I’ll blog soon about our time at The Ritz doing 7 boudoir mini sessions yesterday! For now though, I want to show you our Love Light session!

See? Chris=totally frustrated and me=laughing hysterically!

AGAIN! Me laughing and Chris looking at Katie like, “what the hell do I DO with her?” HA!

Ready for me being REALLY dumb?

Chris is just looking at me like I’ve lost my mind! HA!

Towards the end even Chris started acting silly! Or maybe he was just reacting to me shoving my leg in his face!

You guys, I can’t tell you how much this means to me. I’m going to make an album with ALL the images first because I love the silly ones as much as I love the serious ones (maybe even better b/c those are SO us!) and then Chris and I will decide which one is our favorite and I’m printing it big for our bedroom! These certainly won’t get stuck on a hard drive!

THANK YOU KIM for shooting these and editing them SO darn fast! She totally knew it was driving me crazy not knowing what they looked like! Can we say impatient? HA! And a big thanks to Katie too for giving up her evening to fight with me over posing! Next time I swear I’ll listen to you better!

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Caroline 6 months | St. Louis Family Photography

Posted on January 5, 2012

I was sitting here thinking about how many times we’ve photographed this family and I can’t remember them all! And that is SO awesome to me! It hit me that if I’ve worked with one family for so many years and so many different times at so many different places it must mean this little business is official! Which is funny because obviously it is! Taxes coming up reminds me quickly of that! HA! But it’s our clients that solidify it for me. Especially the ones that come back year after year. The ones that think we’re worth the cost and time and effort to get their families dressed cute and to the location on time because we KNOW it’s all a huge sacrifice. As I thought back on all of our sessions with Maureen, Andy and their three gorgeous kids it just made me smile. I have the best job in the entire world.

Thanks so much Andy and Maureen! I hope you know how much we appreciate you choosing us to be your family photographers! It’s an honor!

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Behind the scenes | Newborn Photography

Posted on January 4, 2012

I asked people on Facebook today what they’d like to see more of in 2012 and one thing that came up a few times from other photographers is they’d love to see more pull-back shots at our studio. It just happens I took a few at one of our last newborn sessions! I will try really hard to take these kind of shots at every session if this is something people are interested in! If you ARE wanting more of this please let me know… if this totally bores the heck out of you please let me know that too! I’d love to get more feedback this year on what you like/don’t like/want/wish we’d do/etc. 2012 is going to be a big year of changes for this little company and the more input I have the better!

One random thing was different for this session… normally we work on a table but since it was safer to do siblings on the floor we just kept going once she was asleep and didn’t move up to our table until she needed a feeding break. Also, what you can’t see is that behind Kim is our other heater and three baskets.

Basket number one is for dirty laundry. After each session one of us takes the dirty (peed/pooped/spit-up on) laundry home to wash.

Basket number two is for our “poop blankets”. These are receiving blankets we use to wrap the baby in between shots… blankets they can poop in and it’s no big deal. We also use them to shove in buckets if we need a little extra boost to to roll under the blankets on the bean bag to help prop a baby. We have at least 20 of these blankets and rarely go through all of them!

Basket number three is our “to do” basket. We trade photos for headbands with a few different ETSY owners and when we get shipments we put the ones we haven’t shot yet in that basket. Once they’ve been shot we move them to our headband stand and hat basket. We always ask parents to chose hats/headbands from our stash that they like but in addition to those we always shoot the ones we’ve been sent. It keeps us on task and constantly inventing ways to create new set-ups to match our new headbands.

Next time I’m at the studio working I’ll take wider shots as well so you can see all the other junk that goes into our studio work! Our unfinished basement studio at my in-laws might not be super glamorous but it works. It’s free, it allows me to grow the business in other ways without having to worry about making rent and really I kind of love it. It’s cozy down there in winter and sunny in the summer. We have good music or HGTV and we always have a blast at our sessions. Who needs a big huge beautiful space to create great images?

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