Eagle Vail Photo Shoot for My Early Steps. Through the Lens Series. Entry 20.

As a mother who is running her own small business, it's always nice to meet other moms who are innovators that are trying to do the same.  Milena has taken it one step further and she has managed to get herself into the realm of inventing a new product.  My Early Steps is a walker for babies that are at the stage where they are learning to walk. As we were taking photos of the walker with 2 superstar models, Evan and Liam, Milena talked to me about the difficulties of designing and manufacturing a new product.  After some trial and error, she has honed her product down to an amazing contraption that not only helps little ones to get comfortable on their feet, but it also ensures that parents don't have to strain their backs with a lot of bending over.

Here are a few of the photos from the shoot that are going to be used for packaging and marketing.

To see more commercial photography from White Starfish Photography taken in Colorado, go to the Commercial Photography Collection.

Pudding Painting in Gypsum. Through the Lens Series, Entry 19.

How much time have you spent ogling over interesting tidbits and crafts on Pinterest?  I know for myself, I always look at things on there and think 'I could totally do that and I'll definitely try it one day' only to forget about 5 minutes later as soon as something more important comes along like laundry or a screaming toddler.

Thankfully, my friend Kim found a kid-friendly Pinterest activity that only involved 2 ingredients.  The 2 ingredients for Pudding Painting are pudding and food coloring.  Other non-edible essentials include lots of space, old sheets, wet rags, paintbrushes and paper.  Clothing is optional!

As any mother out there knows, children of a certain age tend to put everything in their mouths.  This activity was designed to get them used to painting and holding onto a paintbrush.  If they wanted to eat the paint, it was completely edible and slightly delicious.

Here are the results.  Thank you Pinterest!

Step 1:  Take any kind of vanilla pudding and a few bottles of food coloring.

Step 2:  Add a few drops of food coloring.  A little goes a long way.  We used 2 -3 drops per Snack Pack.

Step 3:  Give each child a spoon and a brush and place them over a large piece of paper.  Don't forget a drop cloth!

Tip:  Ask your local newspaper for their leftover rolls of newsprint.  They'll usually give them to you for free.  

The end result...not too much painting was done and there were certainly no masterpieces to hang.  It sure makes for one cute mess though!  Don't forget to have wet cloths ready to go for a quick clean up.  

Follow up on Father's Day. Through the Lens Series, Entry 18

In case you had your head under a rock somewhere and you didn't hear, yesterday was Father's Day. Some Dads I know were spoiled with tool boxes, ladders and Omaha Steaks.  My Rusty was pretty easy to please with a few IPAs from a couple of our local micro-breweries and time to go mountain biking.  Regardless of how you celebrated, I hope all of the good dad's out there were able to feel special in some way yesterday.

In honor of Father's Day, I've put together a few photos of my husband that I think show how much of a good Dad he is.  They're from a special day a few weeks ago when we were able to take Maxwell to the very spot where we were married.  We haven't been back there ourselves since our wedding, so it made it extra special being able to go back there together as a family. 

To give credit where credit is due, I think the second photo was taken by my brother Jaycen, who is also an excellent father. I just wanted to point that out before we get into any copyright wars!

Beaver Creek Chapel Wedding with Katie and Mark. Through the Lens Series, Entry 17

I've been a guest at the Beaver Creek Chapel before, but I've never had the chance to shoot there before, so I was very excited when Katie and Mark asked me to photograph their wedding there a couple of weeks ago.  Everything is so green in the valley at the moment.  In some of the after-ceremony photos, it looks as though I've really turned the color up, but that's how it really looks!  You can also see the impending weather in the later photos.  It made for a really dramatic background, but luckily there was no rain on this parade and everything went off without a hitch.

A big thank you to Katie and Mark for letting me shoot their wedding in this gorgeous setting.  Congratulations!

Family Portraits in Vail with Lauren and Lindsay. Through the Lens Series, Entry 16

I'm shooting my first wedding for the summer this afternoon, so I wanted to get some more photos up on the blog before I get swamped down with editing this week.  As I mentioned in my last post, we just had Maxwell's first birthday, and he was lucky enough to have his grandparents and cousins fly halfway across the country to help him celebrate.  I had planned on taking some photos of the girls while they were here, but the weather wasn't necessarily on our side.  During their stay, we had 2 days of snowfall and rain, while the rest of the country seemed to be at least in the high 80s.  We finally had a short window to take some photos on their last night in town, so we took a couple in Eagle Vail and then we headed down valley to Moe's in Eagle for dinner.  We had about 5 minutes to snap a few in a small enclosure outside Russell's office before we were called inside for dinner.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had purchased a few sets of actions from the Florabella Collection.  These actions are gorgeous and so much fun to play with, but they don't always lend themselves well to studio photography or male subjects.  In other words, they're very girly and fun to use on outdoor shoots, so these photos of the girls were the perfect opportunity for me to play around with them. 

I want to say a big thank you to Lauren and Lindsay for being so cruisy and letting me take their photos in such a short amount of time! Here are a few of the photos.



Click here for more family portrait photography in Vail, Colorado.

Maternity Photos in Beaver Creek with Lili and Nico. Through the Lens Series, Entry 15

Today is Maxwell's first birthday, which is great segway into today's post about Lili and Nico's maternity photos.  I met Lili and Nico through mutual friends a couple of years ago.  Lili works as a nurse in the Labour and Delivery ward in Vail and we were lucky enough to have her as our nurse during my labour with Maxwell.  She played a very special role in helping our little man arrive safely into the world and we are eternally grateful to her and the amazing team or nurses in Vail for that.

When I found out that Lili was pregnant, I instantly wanted to do her maternity photos.  Did I mention that she also taught our labour classes?  Any woman that can teach a group of husbands effective ways to help their wives during labour deserves a good photo shoot right?!

We scheduled the shoot for last Thursday at a time when Nico could join us.  Lili was 35 weeks pregnant at the time, which is the perfect time to do maternity photos.  I know I've mentioned it before, but I'm loving the fact that so many husbands are taking part in maternity sessions now.  We took photos in various locations around Bachelor Gulch and Lili and Nico were so fun and easy going that it made for a really great session.

3 days later we had Lili's baby shower at the Alpine Arts Center in Edwards.  We made cute little applique shapes on onesies and t-shirts for Baby Ty and ate delicious cupcakes as we watched Lili open her presents.  Just standard fare for a baby shower...except that Baby Ty was born the next morning!

I've never had a maternity session that cut it so close.  Just 4 days earlier we were taking photos, so it was a huge surprise for everyone.  Lili, Baby Ty and Nico are all doing well.  So congratulations to the Browns and happy first birthday to my sweet Maxwell D!  Thank you to Lili for helping us out on this day 1 year ago and I hope you enjoy the photos.

PS:  There are people reading this post in New Zealand and America.  This blog is just not fancy enough to keep up with spelling variations across different continents.  Words like labor/labour and center/centre are going to pop in various forms, so bare with me as I try to decide which variation to use.

Click here to see more Maternity Photos in Vail, Colorado.

Engagement Photos in Beaver Creek with Annique and Wally. Through the Lens Series, Entry 14

There's nothing like a 5 week whirlwind hiatus to get you behind on your blogging, but that's where I'm at right now.  I flew back to New Zealand early April with Maxwell and we arrived back, with Russ in tow, late Wednesday night and we've hit the ground running as we always seem to in our household!

Annique and Wally were the lucky winners of my Valentine's Day Engagement Photo Shoot Giveaway in February.  We met up at Beaver Creek on Sunday afternoon and took advantage of the beautiful spring foliage and the interesting emptiness that takes over the Vail Valley during the off season.  The staff at the Golden Eagle Inn saw us doing the photo shoot and came outside with champagne for the bride and groom-to-be.  That's just a classic example of how everything changes around here during the warmer months and the locals get to relax a little bit more.  The weather and lighting were perfect and Annique and Wally were fabulous to work with.  Here are a few of the photos from our session.

I have a very special maternity shoot this afternoon, so hopefully I'll be back up to speed shortly.  It's also Maxwell's first birthday this week and we have some very special visitors coming from Georgia to help us celebrate.  In the mean time, we'll just focus on getting back to a normal sleep pattern!

Click here to see more Engagement Photos in Vail and Beaver Creek, Colorado.