Taylor Family Portraits

These guys are close to my heart (and many. many others' too, for sure!). I didn't know this at the time I took these, but they had not had professional family portraits done ever! Ever! But now they have beautiful, love-filled portraits for their home (and family!).

This was a super quick, slightly freezing photo sesh in their cute back yard. There was a lot of laughing, and beautiful smiles. Family portraits don't have to be a pain to plan for; they can be spontaneous and quickly thrown together.

Creative Portraits {fog inspired}

My boys aren't always so great at listening and not bugging each other... but they are good at modeling for me (and they're ridiculously photogenic). It's a fair trade off, I guess. ;)

Carol, Maternity Portraits

I don't always want to go play outside in the cold, so I've been using the light I have available indoors. (My sliding glass doors to be exact). This is a totally different feel and challenge than being out in wide open spaces!

Marsing Family, Winter Family Photos

I adore this family. I've been taking pictures of these kiddos for about 7 years now! We've done train tracks, gardens, and canyon parks (to name a few places) so this time we tried something different! SNOW! I guess it was meant to be because that morning we got a LOT of snow! 

6 Tips to Get Great Pictures of Kids!

Kids.

Oh, kids.

They can be exasperating to work with.

Let's be honest, a happy child is the most wild, free spirited thing you'll ever know and will hardly sit still or look at a camera long enough to say cheese. BUT if you know a few tricks they can be the most beautiful, magical creatures you've ever worked with! 

Here's a few things I've learned that make photographing kids my favorite! (And they don't even have to smile...)

Connect. You have to have to connect with them somehow. If you connect with them they will be more likely to respond to your direction.

1. Be FUN - throw leaves with them. Play a game of making faces. High five them - a lot!

I think it's really important to know their names, and use it a lot!

2. Change it up. K, now jump around. Look at mom. Make a silly face. Now give me your best smile! Now stop smiling and freeze…. Work with their short attention spans! They're guaranteed to get a little cranky (or maybe a lot) if they are expected to sit still and hold a, now fake, smile.

3. Give them breaks. Again, work with their short attention spans, and give them quick breaks to run around or get a drink or go to mom

4. Encourage good behavior. If mom and dad haven’t already bribed - I mean encouraged - them to be (generally) well behaved, then figure out some kind of reward. Small candies (with parents' permission) like smarties (NO CHOCOLATE) or pez work miracles. If candy is a no-go, simple rewards like hopping up and down can feel like a reward (and also goes along with "give them breaks").

5. Don't make them smile in every shot. Sometimes I like to tell the kids, "don't worry about smiling, just look at me like you're listening." Or, "don't worry about looking at the camera right now... why don't you look at _____________?"

6. Follow them around. Let the kid(s) set the pace for a little bit and follow his or her lead. Ask for their ideas, and go with them. If there is a child who just refuses to cooperate you might be amazed at how they change when they feel like they are in charge! Action shots are another great way to capture their personalities. Follow them around and snap away!

No matter what you do, don't forget to breathe. Don't rush through the experience, try to enjoy it and create those portraits that will be timeless for them and possibly generations to come!

You've totally got this!

What are some of your tricks to get great pictures of kids?
What other challenges do you want to overcome in your portrait photography?

I love those feet

Toes for days!

I love these feet. I love the tiny ones and the bigger ones (though they are all still pretty small). I love that their toes look like little squishy balls.

Oh yeah, and their feet are clean! (But wouldn't that be an image with muddy dirty feet in my clean white bed!)

With 4 boys ages 1-7 this image is kind of a miracle in itself. They were cooperative, and even excited about it. I have an image similar to this of my oldest two that hangs on our wall, and they were happy to try to recreate the image with their younger brothers :)

But those feet! I love their feet! I am grateful for their feet.

Those feet that they stand on, run on, walk on, climb with, kick with (yes, sometimes each other)...

Those feet that will support them throughout their lives. Who knows what grand adventures those feet will take them on! Some they will go on together, others on their own.

Those feet. My GOSH I love those feet.

(Hey! Hey, guys! I don't know if you know this, but I love those feet...) :)

My Little Princess... a photo project

I shared a little teaser in my last post of the project I was working on, My Little Princess a Photography Project. Remember I talked about learning new things? One of the things I learned to make was flower crowns, and I used them for this project.  This is a natural light : natural beauty project that emphasizes softness in facial expression, natural lighting, soft colors and texture. This is a photo shop project as much as a photography (straight out of the camera) project. Adding and blending the texture is what I feel make these images more than just nice pictures, but portraits. Pieces of creative art that would make someone want to hang on them on their walls. :) t's all part of the learning curve. Trial and error. Practice, Practice, Practice.

I am super pleased with these images, and hope you enjoy them!

Rediscovering Me

Have you ever done or experienced something so life changing that it kind of reawakens a part of you that has been dormant for... well, a long time? No? Go do it.

I'm at a good place in my life right now, (a calm before a storm? I hope not! knockonwood) and have been motivated to learn new things. I've been brave enough to start growing my own herbs, we're eating healthierish (yeah it's a thing), I've been trying new lighting/fabric/textures in my photography and I'm loving the results! Today I even set up my sewing machine!

It's no secret that I'm not fan of Winter, and finally summer is here! I thrive in the summertime!

I considered starting a new blog for the things I'm learning and experiencing... but let's be honest... there's a pretty good chance it will be badly neglected. So I'll share somethings here. Hope you don't mind!

And for your viewing pleasure... A beautiful little princess! (I've also learned how to make flower crowns and I'm in love with them!)

Little Boy Blue {A 3 Year Old Photo Session}

This kid is so dang cute.

And he's mine.

I've been trying to do better at at least getting birthday pictures of my (four) boys! It's harder work than it should be. I have been a slacker with my older boys, and I need to get pictures because they are both in their jack-o-lantern phase... and boy is it awesome. (Hey! Everyone goes through it!)

Anyway, here's my darling boy. I'm super pleased with these as I didn't intentionally over-expose them. I usually avoid mid-day like the plague, but it's the time we had to work with so there you go! We survived, and got a few gems that I will cherish for always!

Playing with available light

I love playing with light and trying new things. This is 100% natural light from her bedroom window. Yep! I saw this light and had to have it. ;) Obviously it worked perfectly with some texturing too! I am super pleased with this image and can't wait to play with this technique more! 

Prom 2014

My first time doing Prom pictures! It was an adventure to say the least and it was pretty dang cold... and obviously we were lacking some sleeves. Kindly, the gentlemen offered their jackets to their dates. :) I do have more images, and I'll try to remember to resize them, throw a watermark on them and share them! I have a few other photo sessions I need to get caught up with!! 

(If you want to see more images, "like" Alicia States Photography on Facebook!)

Winter Pearls

We had a fun mini session up in the mountains - where we found some snow! It may not seem like it since you don't really notice it in these images, but the snow really created the feel of this session. And do you like the pearls? I love 'em! :) These are my favorite images of each of them. It was a really mini session since it was so dang cold! But obviously a success!

Family Fun

I'm still behind on sessions! This is from a session in November just before the winter really set in! It was dang cold but these kids were exceptionally well behaved and we got some great images during this mini session!

This one is my favorite since it is so spontaneous and fun! It makes me smile :)

Portrait Party... aka Photo Partay!!

I am super behind on posting images from the past few sessions, but these girls are dying to see their pictures, so I'm "throwing" them up here! 

We laughed a lot as these girls worked the camera. :) Really, they're just naturally beautiful girls and getting incredible shots of them was easy peasy. 

My sister (the first one pictured) will be going back to Hawaii at the end of the month and wanted some fallish pictures before she leaves (haha pun not intended)! The colors weren't as brilliant as we had hoped, but obviously we got some good shots even if they don't scream Autumn! 

Honestly, so much fun!