Since I last saw Sydney she’s started crawling and standing (provided she can hold onto something)– she’s got a super-cute head of hair and her mom Shari put her in an adorable pink ruffled outfit for our shoot at the Pier 6 playground along the Brooklyn waterfront. Though she was crankier than we might have liked today (it was hot out, actually HOT!) I managed to get a few of her fleeting smiles captured! Here were some of my favorite frames…
Last weekend I had the honor of shooting baby Eleanor– she must have the most calm and peaceful baby I’ve met in some time! She had the prettiest red-tint to her hair in the sunlight and such a sweet little face. I hope I get to shoot her again as she grows. Check out a few of my favorites from her portraits at 2 weeks old…
Dana was a bridesmaid at Alex & Michelle’s wedding and I was so thrilled when she got in touch to schedule newborn portraits with her first baby, Jordan! He’s just two weeks old so it was a real honor to be invited into their home– and what great light they get in their place too… I’m just loving some of these shots I got. Couldn’t wait to share them!
Way back in the fall of 2010 I shot a sweet little wedding at Housing Works Bookstore for Adam and Shireen– it was my first wedding at the venue, which has become a favorite of mine lately… little did I know at the time, Adam and Shireen were planning to have a baby ASAP! It’s been a year and change now and here is little Nathaniel! I was so excited to have an opportunity to make portraits of him and their adorable new family together in Central Park near where they live. They’ll be packing up for New Jersey in the next few weeks so I got this session in the nick of time. Cold as it was we made the best of it and I actually think little Nathaniel looks pretty cute all bundled up in his full-body-sleeping-bag-onesie type thing… Here are a few of my favorites from our walk in the park.
It’s only been a little over a year since I shot Audrey’s first portraits (around her first birthday) but she has grown so much! I enjoyed photographing her and her parents as we took a walk through the woods near their home in New Jersey, just over the George Washington Bridge. What a wonderful neighborhood she’s growing up in! Here are some favorites from the shoot… I arrived to find a shy little cutie. 
so I asked her to show me her toys in the playroom.
We all got bundled up and went outside…
And we headed down the street and into the woods!
Then I saw this awesome tree… it was hollow in the bottom, and just the right size for little Audrey to stand inside of! So I lured her in…
and nabbed a few of my favorite pictures of the day…
We continued downhill along a path towards a pond, where we’d meet her grandparents and some other local family for a group shot.
She’s such a cutie! I love this little series playing on the ground.
Her mother Katya is pregnant with their second child, so I insisted on making a quick maternity portrait for her while we waited for Audrey to finish her sit-down.
We finished our walk down by a pretty pond and made some pictures of Audrey with some other folks, like her grandpa, shown below…
Peek-a-boo!
And back to the house to warm up!
Before I left I made a portrait of Audrey’s grandparents– grandpa was having a birthday and it would have been a shame not to capture him in his spiffy suit!
Mandy and I went to college at Wesleyan together and when I saw on facebook that she was near the end of her pregnancy I suggested she might like to plan on coming in for newborn portraits when her baby was in it’s first two weeks! At this stage the baby is still tiny and can comfortably sleep with its legs tucked under it’s body– many baby portrait specialists recommend the first week as the ideal time to shoot in order to get the trickiest (and cutest) poses. I have found it difficult to convince new parents (whom I may have met for a maternity session) that coming in with their baby at the right time is important– they’re still in the throes of new-baby-at-home excitement and often are too overwhelmed with the basic tasks of living that they may not want to leave the house for such an adventure… I was so glad when Mandy said her mom was going to drive her and Julius up to my studio last weekend– the baby wouldn’t have to ride on the subway (immune system overload!) and better still, I knew I’d be able to get a sweet portrait of Julius with his mom AND grandmom! Poor little Julius was feeling very awake despite our best attempts to feed and coax him into a nap, so we weren’t able to attempt some of the poses I had in mind (which really require a comatose-level sleeping baby to manipulate the arms and legs into the cutest positions)– but he proved to be just picture perfect as he was! Here are my favorites…
Shari recently got in touch with me to plan a session for baby and family portraits with her first daughter Sydney. Since she was past the newborn stage and Shari wanted park portraits I suggested we wait til this baby girl could hold herself in a sitting position, thereby giving us more posing possibilities. I’m so glad we waited a few weeks– Brooklyn Bridge Park was beautiful and I found some sweet spots for Sydney to sit and explore. Check out my favorite shots below…
I’ve been shooting portraits of little Zackary since he was in Lydia’s belly, and I must say I just love it when I get the chance to see him again and continue building this collection as we document his childhood– he’s grown SO MUCH since I last saw him, he’s just the cutest little man now… of course the cute little sweater/collared shirt his parents dressed him certainly furthered that look, but still, his little legs and arms are getting so long! His hair is as curly and soft as I remember it though. I was thrilled to shoot with this family down at Brooklyn Bridge Park-- what an amazing playground– if you have kids of any age and haven’t been there I highly recommend it… they have everything you could want and more. Plus that incredible rubber flooring that makes it feel like you’re walking around in the sole of a giant Croc sandal (and yes, these shoes are really comfy and I love them, though I stick to the more aesthetically pleasing ones!). Zackary was really fun to shoot with, he warmed up to me pretty quickly and since he’s seen his previous portraits in a book I made for them last year he even had a shot or two he wanted to recreate. Check out my favorite images… it was so hard to narrow them down for this post!
He was nervous about going on this slide but with a little help from Dad he tried it and decided he liked it by the time he got to the bottom!
Zackary got SO into climbing in these web-things… said he was a spider!
After sliding himself he turned and got ready to “catch Dada”– so cute!
We played peek-a-boo on and off and at one point he ran all the way into these bushes to hide from me 
I asked him to mess up his hair so it would be fuzzy on top for me… his curls remind me of Bob Dylan for some reason.
The big boy swings!
Could this hat be any cuter on him?
I was loving the fall foliage we found around the park– so much red, orange, and yellow while still plenty of green about. Great material for background bokeh!
Thanks for another great shoot, Zackary– can’t wait til next time– you just get cuter and cuter every time I see you!
Chris and Claire have lived in New York City for about 5 years but are soon to be moving back to Australia, to raise their baby Nickelus closer to their families. To capture this special time in their lives and preserve memories of walking Nick in Central Park, they contacted me for a fun and casual portrait session. This baby boy is so calm and sweet– he’d had a good long nap earlier in the day so he was just a sweetheart to be around and he smiles like a regular Gerber baby! Here are some of my favorite shots from our session…
Though Jason is still just a baby he looks like a big boy in some of my faves from this shoot! I hadn’t seen Erin and Ernie since their maternity shoot– to finally meet little Jason was a joy to say the least. What a sweet child– calm, curious, and I was shocked at how unfussy he was over the course of our session in Central Park. To celebrate his birthday Erin had a sweet little birthday cake made for him and we set him out on a little quilt with his cake and let him explore it! What a fun session!
