Bowers Family Photos in Silverthorne, Colorado

Spring time is a wonderful time to take photos in the Rockies...if you can time it right!  For all of the beauty and wonderful backgrounds it provides, it can also provide some equally challenging scenarios.

The Bowers (all 7 of them!) were driving up from the front range and we were all set to meet in Frisco.  I was coming from Vail and it was blue skies and sunshine in Eagle County.  By the time I hit Copper though, things weren't looking so great.  After a few phone calls, we met in Frisco and watched as the snow and rain came in waves.  The girls all had cute outfits to wear and our first location was simply too wet and muddy, so we headed for location number 2, which was the river front running through the Outlets.  Although this location was dry, the scenery wasn't so great.  Location number 3 turned out to be just perfect though.  We found a spot with no crowds, 2 bridges and access to the stream.  The weather calmed down and suddenly everything fell into place!  I'll definitely be keeping this spot on my list of great locations in Summit County.

Here are some of the photos from our little adventure.

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.

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.

Studio Portraits with Ben in Eagle Vail. Through the Lens Series, Entry 21.

The last time I took studio photos of Benjamin, he was only a few weeks old and I was 36 weeks pregnant.  He was such a fantastic model at such a young age that I knew we would get some great shots of him at a recent studio session.

He certainly didn't disappoint us and we had such a fun time with all kinds of props including cameras, blocks and chairs.  It was a great help having his Grandparents behind me stomping and waving at him and making him smile.  Having his Mom and Dad there with some funny props  was a tremendous help also.

Maxwell has just moved up to his 3rd classroom at daycare and after his first day in the new room, the teachers commented that Ben looked after Maxwell all day long.  So I am eternally grateful to this gorgeous wee man for looking after my little guy.

Here are a few of the photos from our fun morning.

This shot makes me think of the Little Rascals for some reason.

Ben was really interested in what was going on behind my camera.  The only problem was that I couldn't take any photos of him if he was on the same side of the lens as me, so we got him his own.  I see a shutter bug in the making!

Ben was so tired after modeling all morning, but we managed to get one last shot outside with his grandparents.

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!

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.

Studio Portraits in Edwards with Declan

I wanted to post one more photo from my studio session with Declan the other day, but I have to leave it at just one photo because I'm not sure which ones will be used for his Christmas card this year and I don't want to spoil the surprise for anyone.  He's certainly a photogenic wee thing!

Click here to see more Baby Portraits in Vail, Colorado.

Studio Portraits in Edwards, Colorado with Declan

One more quick sneak peak from from another family session this weekend with sweet baby Declan. Talk about multi-tasking. Decs managed to squeeze in baby male modelling, playing host to a gaggle of other babies in his house for the afternoon and a quick nap! He's a star :)

To see more photos from our session, go to Declan's Baby Portraits in Edwards, Colorado.