Vail Newborn Photographer - Baby Trip in Gypsum Colorado

Spring is definitely springing, but I wouldn't say it's necessarily sprung around here.  In true spring fashion though, I seem to have a lot of baby sessions on the books and the first one I'm going to share is of Baby Trip.  I had a great time capturing those very cute cheeks and he really took a shining to  laying on the bean bag, which helped with a lot of the shots.  

The black and white shots are coming out with a sepia tone this morning, so I'm going to work on figuring out why.  Hopefully I'll have it figured out for my next post!

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Vail Village Family Photos

I'm a little behind on posts, so I'm going to start with some pics from a recent shoot for my friend Brighton and his gorgeous family.  Brighton is an old friend from my days of working on top of Vail Mountain.  He had asked me to capture some photos with his wife Melissa and their children, Thandi and Themba while they were in Vail for a ski trip.  We decided to meet in Vail Village and I have a few regular spots around the village that I like to use for shoots.  Due to all of the ridiculous snowfall we had this winter, all of my regular haunts were completely useless (unless you wanted shots of your family waist deep in snow).  We finally settled on a great little pocket park and got to work on some nice family photos.  However, most Colorado families will tell you that if there's one thing we all love about living here, it's playing outdoors.  Much to Themba's delight, we decided to take some more candid shots, that I feel truly capture what family life is really like up here in the hills.  Here are a few of my favorites.

To see more, go to The Vail Family Photo Collection

Beaver Creek Wedding Anniversary - Mike and Kim's 25th Wedding Anniversary

I had a great time capturing Mike and Kim's 25th Wedding Anniversary during their recent trip to Colorado.  We had a great snowfall the day before the shoot, so there was fresh snow everywhere and I loved the contrast of Kim's red jacket against the new snow.  Because the weather was freezing cold, we chose 3 locations in Beaver Creek.  This way we could hop into warm cars between each location and warm up for 5 minutes or so.  I told them they had to go home and tell their children how 'hard core' the photo shoot was.  You can't tell from these images, but at the last location I chose, they were wading through at least 24 inches of snow.  But you'd never be able to tell from their smiling faces!

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Vail Family Photographer - Maxwell and Harrison in Vail, Colorado

I've officially reached 100 blog posts! As a way of saying thank you to all of my wonderful clients that have let me share their stories, I thought I would put myself in their shoes and share some photos of my little guys.

I don't often get a chance to capture Maxwell and Harrison, but I had some backdrops and props set up from a recent shoot, so I left them up and got the boys in front of them.  This is the style of portrait photography that I like the most.  Simple outfits, clean backdrops, a few props, natural light and minimal photo shop.  The poses aren't perfect because I was hoping to get something more candid.  I figure that Maxwell's funny faces (and his crazy bowl cut) will be things that will make me smile more when I look back on these in years to come.

Thank you to everyone that has been so generous in letting me share their photos.  Maybe I'll post some more of the boys once I hit 200 posts!

To see more head to the Vail Children's Photography Collection

Vail Baby Photos - Violet's Valentine's Session

Well, I'm sure everyone is coming down from their sugar highs now that Valentine's Day is out of the way, but I have one more sweet treat to share.  Miss Violet came to have some Valentine's photos taken in early February, and I've been waiting to share them because they were going in a special book for her grandparents as a Valentine's Day gift.

We did a very quick 30 minute session and she was a dream!  We came up with 6 different ideas and she let us change her into all kinds of outfits with different backdrops and props.  I loved some of these ideas, so I need to remember to do something similar with the boys next year.

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Beaver Creek Engagement Photos - Lyndsey and Drew

Happy belated new year to everyone!  I have officially survived flying from Colorado to New Zealand all by myself with a 2 year old and a 7 month old.  The flights went surprisingly well and it was definitely worth it to be able to spend a month on the beach with my family and friends.  I'm back in Vail now and it's taken me a few days to reacquaint myself with words like 'polar vortex' and 'wind chill factor', but we're getting back into the swing of things.  Below is a post that I had written just before I left, but I didn't get a chance to post it.  It was my last session for 2013 and I'll post my first session for 2014 in the next few days.

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Anybody who knows me well will tell you that I don't particularly like the cold.  The absurdity of this statement is not lost on me.  I realize that I live in a ski town in the middle of the Rockies.  I just prefer spring skiing more than taking runs in sub-arctic temperatures!

Lyndsey and Drew were visiting from Texas and had asked me to capture some engagement photos for them.  The day we decided to go out was 9 degrees!  For those of you who are not from America, that's -13 celsius!!  I was so impressed with how well they handled the temperature and they certainly kept each other smiling throughout the session.  You would never be able to tell from their faces that it was freezing.  The upside of taking the photos in such cold conditions is that we got to take advantage of some beautiful backdrops around Beaver Creek.  The very last location we went to was the giant fire place in the lobby of the Hyatt.  It was a great chance to thaw out after an amazing session.

Vail Wedding Proposal-Vail Engagement Photos - Lisa and Katlin in East Vail.

Up until the recent cold snap that swept the nation, we were having a pretty mild winter here in Vail.  This meant that my recent photo session with Lisa and Katlin could be done in the snow at the Vail Golf Course, without worrying about gloves, hats or any of that other winter clutter.  The frozen stream, mountains and bridges made for a gorgeous backdrop for their 'couples' photo session.

We had been walking around for about 20 minutes and we came across a backdrop against the mountains that I knew would look great with a wide angle lens.  We set up the shot and Lisa asked if they should put their jackets on or take them off.  I said to keep them off, so she put hers on my camera bag, safely out of the shot.  Katlin dropped his on the ground at his feet instead.  I thought it was a bit strange because it was obviously going to be right in the middle of the shot.  Lisa looked at him confused and told him to get it out of the way.  I had just finished putting a new lens on my camera and then it all became clear why he wanted to keep the jacket in the shot.  As I turned around, I noticed he was down on one knee.  Arrrrhh!!

I took several frantic shots and luckily they all came out nicely!  Of course she said yes, so our little photo session turned into an engagement session.  Here are a few shots from our little escapade around the Vail Golf Course.