Oh that beautiful baby! Those beautiful baby eyes!

My new favorite thing is to take closeups of baby faces, feet and hands for a triptych.  This little girl has the most amazing big brown eyes framed by pretty eyelashes that twinkle along with her shy smile.  I like it best in black and white so her eyes are featured.  It is a fitting entry for the beautiful eyes challenge at Iheartfaces.  You can see more beautiful eyes here

  

New BFF for LIFE!

The new grandson is here and he has a built-in BFF in his big brother! I was practicing my newborn photography and JoJo's big brother Dominic wanted to get close.  It's funny that when he talks the baby opens his eyes real big and turns his head right towards his big brother.  We will all enjoy them growing up together and we know they will be the best of friends.  I think this is the perfect entry for the new Iheartfaces challenge on friends.

You can see other other entries here.    

...so I love props of all kinds with kids photography, but sometimes it's the simple things that make a memorable shot.

I have buckets and blankets, wagons, pinwheels, baskets and platters, knitted cocoons, tutus and headbands, fedoras and beanies, vintage suitcases, typewriters and telephones.    I have backdrops of all sorts from fabrics, boards, tin and printed professional nonglare vinyl/canvas.  Because of years spent in the antiques business, I entered into children's photography ready for any type of image a parent could desire.  

But it's not always about the props, it's about the kids.  Not stiff posed kids but sweet innocent children who believe that the prop is a real part of the moment.  That's the hard part.  That's what I am good at.

I am the oldest kid in the studio.  I am the kid that didn't have any toys (or friends) in childhood, or that took the pain of my childhood out on the few toys I had...I didn't deserve them.  I wasn't good enough.*  So I become the child along with the one I am photographing.  I am excited to play with these toys and share them with my new friends, we have a good old time.

I noticed with my own children that the toys rarely got played with regularly.  They preferred the box or the adventure of imagination.  We played together making costumes, blanket forts and tea parties.  I now chase my grandson, crawling on all fours as a dog or a cat.  We play peekaboo and marching band with the pots and wooden spoons.  

His baby brother is due any day now.  I wanted a picture of him interacting with the baby in his mama's belly.  We've been reading books about babies, I wonder how real all of this is to him.  So I made him a new toy to "talk" to the baby with.  This is a shot of that interaction.  You can see more shots of this 10 minute mini session on my Facebook fan page.
  

See more images with props at Iheartfaces  latest challenge here.

*Note:  I am fortunate that my family has overcome the challenges we all suffered when I was a child and I have a wonderful relationship with my parents.  They love being great grandparents and I look forward their continued wisdom in my life.

...so crazy can be whimsical (in a photographer), right?

I look like a normal baby boomer grandmother but inside I cherish the wonder of a little girl, I have a running quirky commentary asking "WHY?" and can be quite the smarty pants.  That's why I love photography.  I can express that in my photography.  I think that's where my daughter Samantha get's her slightly off center point of view in her photography as well.  Is that what whimsy is?

When my oldest daughter had a bug party we helped plan and made a photo booth as well as photographed the festivities.  Samantha did the face painting and this is her favorite shot from that day in the Iheartfaces.com whimsy challenge.  You can see more whimsical images here!

So trying to photograph a large family with boys is like trying to catch a greased pig...

it can be done but it'll wear everybody out!  Well maybe it wasn't all that bad but it was hard!  My baby brother and his family were out for the weekend, celebrating their son's gaduation in my backyard as a family graduation pool party.  The next day I wanted to take a family portrait for them and they brought clothes to wear (mom brought an assortment of outfits...so fun).

I had hoped to get them up early while the morning overcast was still around but not only would they not get up, they had a hard time getting going as well.  I didn't want their mom to stress out at them because I probably wouldn't get a happy family picture that way so we just worked with what they gave us.  That's the real Chavez family anyway, we don't sit still well and we don't go until we are good and ready.

This is one of three places I photographed them.  Before I took this one, I had them jump around, kick like ninjas and wrestle a little.  The boys love this one and I am happy with the attitude mom has, just going with it even though she wanted to strangle them all morning.  The session took about an hour and I am tempted to make a stop motion of all their shenanigans it took to get the shots.  I wish we didn't have the harsh summer morning sun but it is what it is.  What do you think?

To see more images of boys, this weeks theme on Iheartfaces.com just go here!