The Bailey Family in Beaver Creek. Through the Lens Series, Entry 39.

We're nearly at the end of the holiday season for another year, and now that Christmas is over, I can post some holiday card photos.

The Bailey's had requested for their photos to be taken at the Hyatt at Beaver Creek in front of their fabulous fireplace in the Great Room.  We took the photos on Thanksgiving afternoon, which meant there were plenty of people in the Great Room area coming in from their day on the slopes.  Luckily, we didn't have any problems getting in front of the fireplace and we were able to re-arrange the furniture.  We had plenty of bystanders watching us and even helping out a little and the photo shoot was done in half an hour.

I raced home afterwards to collect the boys and to head out to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner.  As soon as I pulled up to my house, I realized I had left my hand bag in the lobby, so we had make a pit stop back at the Hyatt on our way to dinner.  Luckily it was still there!

I hope everyone is having a fun holiday season and enjoying time with family and friends.  We're freezing here in Vail with a high today of 14 degrees (-10 Celsius).  Wherever you may be and whatever temperature you find yourself in, happy holidays to you and yours from me and mine!

Haley's Maternity Photos in Edwards, Colorado. Through the Lens Series, Entry 37.

It's a been a few weeks since my last blog post, but I have plenty to post about.  I've been really busy with lots of photo shoots for christmas cards, so there will be more to come on those shortly.  I have a 50 photo display up in the Avon library (which took some time to get together with a lot of help Russ) and I'll post some photos of that soon too.  In the mean time, I'm going to go back a few weeks and post some photos from a maternity photo shoot that I did in Edwards for Haley and Mike.

To get the maximum effect from a maternity shoot, you don't want to do the photos any earlier than 36 weeks.  I've done a couple of sessions before that, but 36 weeks seems to be the general rule of thumb.  Haley was right at 36 weeks when we took the photos.  These were taken right around Thanksgiving and we didn't really  have much snow at the time, but we found a nice patch of snow outside Riverwalk and we took the rest of the photos around the Riverwalk area.

I loved the red top that Haley chose to wear.  It looked great against the late fall, early winter colors.  As I've mentioned before, I always love it when husbands take part in the session and Mike did a fantastic job helping Haley through the snow.

Here are a few of my faves from the session.  

I love the lighting on this shot.

To see more maternity photos, go to The Maternity Collection

Halloween in Happy Valley. Through the Lens Series, Entry 36.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!  It's 6:30am and I've been up since 5am editing a maternity session from last weekend.  We have a big day ahead of us with a Turkey Trot and feasting with friends this afternoon.  I'm going to squeeze in another Christmas card session this afternoon too, so getting my editing out of the way at 5am is the way to go for me today.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm working on Christmas card photos, so I can't post them just yet.  So now is a good time for me to put up a few photos from Halloween.  Russ and I both big fans of Monsters Inc. so I couldn't resist buying a Sully costume for Maxwell this year.  Unfortunately for me, he was not as enthusiastic about the idea as I was.

We got to celebrate Halloween 3 times this year.  We went Trick or Treating in Minturn the night before Halloween with our friends Emma, Evan and Tyce.  This is my favorite event for Halloween because the people watching is fantastic.  Minturn's main street consists of store fronts with homes dotted throughout and both the businesses owners and the home owners go all out to make it special.  It's also a small enough town that you can be done in an hour, which is important in the valley, because you never know how cold it might be.

The next day they had a big party at Maxwell's school and parents were invited to come along.  We played in the gym and the kids had a big picnic with cookies, candy and a little bit of fruit.  We ventured on to Miller Ranch that night as you can see by the photos, Maxwell was done with that silly costume by this stage.  He was much happier to be munching on pizza in his Superman t-shirt.  Maybe we'll try a Superman costume next year...

Happy Turkey Day!

Getting dressed in the back of the car in Minturn.  We learned pretty quickly before leaving for Minturn that costumes and car seats don't work well together.  

Emma the Pink Unicorn and Evan the Bumblebee in Minturn. 

Tyce the Dragon.

Halloween at Daycare with Ben the Cowboy.  Maxwell wouldn't let me get one photo with the head on his outfit!

Hmmmmm, sugar cookies or chocolate chip.                                            I'll start with a sugar cookie.

So happy to be out his costume at Miller Ranch.

Down on the Farm at the Pumpkin Patch. Through the Lens Series, Entry 35

With the holidays just around the corner, I'm using all of my spare time taking lots of family photos for clients who are eager to get started on their Christmas cards.  I'm really enjoying doing these photos, but the issue is that I'm not able to post any of the photos to the blog or Facebook, because everyone would like it to be a surprise for their family and friends when they receive their cards.

This is giving me a little time to go back and have a look at some personal projects from the last couple of months that I haven't had time to post about.  I'm going to start with some photos from a recent trip we took to Osage Farms in New Castle, which is about an hour west of Vail.  Osage Farms has become very popular with our local farmer's markets in our area and being that it's an organic farm, they are now selling their veggies and herbs at Whole Foods.

Growing up, my brothers and I were lucky enough to spend plenty of time on plenty of farms.  For 3 city kids, we were constantly visiting friends and relatives that farmed cows, sheep, chickens and pigs to name a few.  I also come from a family of green thumbs.  We were always coming home from my Nana's with buckets of fejoas, plums, apples and kiwifruit.  Not to mention the vast veggie patches we've always had at the various houses I lived in, in Hamilton.  So, it was fun to take Maxwell and his buddies to Osage Farms to see the pumpkin patch and to learn about eggplants, sunflowers, melons, chickens and biggest basil plants I've ever seen (they were up to my arm pits!).

Obviously, this was fun for the Mums as well.  As you can see from the photos, the highlight of the day for the kids was clearly the wagon.

Studio Photos in Edwards with Miss Evelyn. Through the Lens Series, Entry 33

Now that the weather has turned and Vail finally has some snow, my work is heading back indoors for the winter.  With all of the weddings and outdoor sessions from the summer, it has been a while since I've done a studio shoot.  When Jenny called and asked me to photos of Evelyn at 4 weeks old, it was time for me to dust of the props and load up the car.

Luckily for me, they had some wonderful lighting in their house, so I didn't need to bother with the studio lights.  Natural lighting is always going to produce much nicer lighting.  Evelyn was amazingly calm and patient throughout the whole shoot.  She let us dress her up in all kinds of fun girly outfits!  I could go on and on, but she really is a beautiful baby (as you can tell by the photos).

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the session.

The Hood's Fall Photos. Through the Lens Series, Entry 32

I'm way behind on blogging (again), but we've been dealing with our first rounds of the flu for the winter, lots of fun travels, Halloween and even a trip to the Pumpkin Patch at Osage Farms.  There'll be more to come on all of this in a later post, but I wanted to put up some photos of my last Fall photo shoot before we lost all of our beautiful aspen leaves.

I don't usually bring Maxwell along with me to photo shoots (for obvious reasons), but we were shooting his little friend Emma, so I figured he'd be a good assistant.  He stood behind me a lot of the time and thankfully was making Emma giggle for most of the shoot.  You can tell where he was standing by following the direction of Emma's eyes in some of the photos.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from that day.

One of the many amazing meadows around the Vail Valley.

Guess where Maxwell is standing.

Chief Kiss Blower.  He loved rolling around in the dirt, which made for some very grubby kisses to Emma.

Here he is acting as my caddy with suggestions for which lens to use and when to add a flare protector.

Click here for more Family Photography by White Starfish Photography.

She Said Yes! Matt's Wedding Proposal to Amy at the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens. Through the Lens Series, Entry 31

It sounds hokey, but you have to be a romantic to be a wedding photographer.  So when Matt emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking me to capture his proposal to Amy, of course I wanted to do it!  Matt and I emailed each other several times leading up to the big day and we decided the best way for me to photograph them, was for me to play the role of a random tourist.

Matt and Amy had never been to Vail and we had never met in person, so the preparation involved figuring out where to meet and what they would be wearing.  As they started walking towards the bridge I was so nervous for Matt that my hands were shaking!  Luckily the aspens were looking gorgeous and it was a classic Colorado bluebird day.  Of course she said yes!  About two seconds later, Matt introduced me and we took a few photos around the gardens.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the shoot.  Congratulations Matt and Amy!

Sara and Steve's Fall Photos in Vail. Through the Lens Series, Entry 30

The first time I saw the leaves change in Vail was in 2003.  I had no idea it was going to be such a spectacle and I had no idea how to take a decent photo.  I drove out to Bellyache Ridge and took a few photos of the Aspens and showed them to my brother in London a couple of weeks later.  He thought it was a postcard and didn't believe that my cheap little 35mm camera could take that kind of photo.

If you haven't been to Vail or even Colorado while the leaves are changing, then I highly suggest putting it on your list of things to do.  It's a very short window and the whole valley can change overnight (September blizzards are a common occurrence in these parts), so it can be really hard to plan.

This year the leaves changed a little earlier than usual, but they also seem to be holding on a little longer.  Luckily for Sara and Steve, they timed it just perfectly.  Sara wanted some photos of the her and Steve with the leaves in the background.  We started over by the Vail Rugby Field with Golden Peak in the background.  The first few photos show you why it's called Golden Peak!  Then we drove across I-70 and found a perfect meadow, where the lighting was unbelievable.

Here are a few of my favorite pics from their shoot.

This was taken by Golden Peak, looking towards East Vail.

The Meadow on the northern side of I-70.  I'd love to tell you where, but locations are like secret recipes !

To see more, go to Fall Photos in Vail