First day of school photo tips

With the first day of school right around the corner for some of us, I thought I’d update this previous blog post and provide a few tips for getting great photos of your kids before they head off to start another year. 

These are photos of our oldest two kiddos, who are now adults both living on their own. It goes fast I tell ya!

just do it.
You don’t need a fancy camera - your smartphone is great! Just remember to wipe off the lens. While you’re at it, consider getting a little video, too. (You can stitch it into your 1 Second Everyday app later if you’re into that sort of thing) Nothing is better than hearing those little voices years down the line!

think about lighting.
Find a spot where your child isn’t squinting. Full shade works best. Try turning them in different directions until you find the one where your child’s eyes shine.

scope out areas ahead of time. 
Time is always short on the first morning of school, so look for a suitable spot for photos a day or two before the first day madness.

don’t forget the details.
I still remember my Holly Hobbie metal lunchbox with the thermos I had in elementary school… it will be fun for the kids to look back and see what shoes, backpack or lunchbox they picked that year so make sure to capture those details in some of your shots.

go for scale. 
Find a place to take a photo that shows scale. I like to use the front door of my house, so every year it’s easy to see how much taller everyone has gotten. You could also use a tree, the sign out front of the school, etc.

go close up. 
in addition to a full body shot that shows scale, make sure to get a close up that shows those cute missing teeth/braces/freckles/etc.!

capture the journey to school. 
Do your kids walk? Take the bus? Ride a carpool? Whatever it is, a photo of that process will be fun for them (and you) to look back on in future years. Especially if it involves your older brother walking you to his school for the first time and taking you by the hand. 😭

consider getting in the frame. 
I am guilty of not doing this myself many years, but consider hopping in a photo or two with your kiddos. Your future self will thank you. If you want my whole take getting in the picture, read this post here.

Happy Back to School! #themostwonderfultimeofyear

there's no place like home

I love capturing new families at home. It can make the session more relaxed, since you’re not driving and parking anywhere. If someone needs a break or a new outfit, those things are just steps away. And I love capturing details like what your home looked like. I know I love looking at those types of details in my own baby photos!

This photoshoot was a newborn shoot that got rescheduled several times for safety, and I am so glad because we got to capture these great interactions and smiles that you just don’t get with a brand new baby. Enjoy all the adorable baby squish, drool and smiles in the photos below!

Would you like me to capture your own family story? I can come to your home or we can find the perfect Sacramento-area location. Book at 15-minute discovery call and you can hear all about how this process works!

Family fun at the Ice Blocks | Sacramento Family Photography

I look forward to this family’s photo sessions every year! I first got to capture this little guy’s early life at home here. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to capture their yearly family holiday photos. When I saw them arriving, I crouched down to greet him on his eye level. He ran right toward me and gave me a hug so powerful he knocked me off my balance. It was the sweetest thing... I actually teared up a little bit!

The ICE Blocks in Midtown made for a perfect mini session location this year. There are so many fantastic backgrounds to choose from and families loved easy parking and being able to go shopping or get a bite to eat after the session. This particular spot is under construction, because it’s going to be the area’s first Shake Shack! I’ve never eaten at one but am suuuper excited to to try it when the world opens up!

This family always has the best outfits!

I love this old colorful brick background - it matched his outfit perfectly #bonus

The morning of this session they were thinking of rescheduling as he wasn’t feeling his best. But he sure rallied!

I love the way these moms are looking at each other in this last one... They told me at this shoot that they were expecting baby #2 and you can just see the joy and love between them. In fact, the new addition is now a couple of weeks old and I hope I get to meet him in person when we are allowed to get somewhat close again.

A colorful family session at UC Davis

One of the best parts about my custom photoshoot process is working with each client to create a custom, personalized experience. I remember when I was a kid our family would go to the photo studio in the mall to get family photos taken. The closest my Mom got to customizing our session was picking which one of the weird fake backgrounds and props she thought would coordinate with our outfits. Snowy scene through the windowpanes? Summer garden? Solid black? My process is a little different: I start by sending you an easy-to-fill out online questionnaire, and then we hop on the phone to talk through and collaborate on some ideas for the perfect photoshoot for you.

For this family session, I knew that they wanted to shoot in Davis. I knew that they were interested in somewhere where they could explore and run and have fun together, but not somewhere that was all nature. Challenge accepted! I suggested the UC Davis campus. We met one chilly fall morning and spent a delightful hour together. I loved capturing them enjoying each other and the experience of exploring the empty grounds. Here are some of my favorites from their session:

I asked them to create their album cover shot and this what I got. I love it so much!

This family had never had professional photos done before, and they were pleasantly surprised that it was fun and easy. I promise all my families that we’ll have fun and we definitely did.

I’d love to help you plan your own personalized session. If you have any questions, let’s talk!

a beautiful at home newborn session

The past session spotlight continues with this adorable newborn session from a couple of years ago(!). I love capturing those first days as a family is finding their groove. Often I am the first non-family member welcomed into this little family cocoon, and it’s an honor I don’t take lightly.

In-home sessions are so wonderful because we can follow the baby’s lead and take as much time and as many breaks as needed for feeding, changing, burping, and all the things a little one needs.

I just love how they are gazing at each other here:

These first days go by in a sleep deprived haze and it’s another reason I love to capture this time. With some sleep and some perspective, these images will be even sweeter. It will be hard to believe she was ever this teeny, and without photos it’d be easy to forget she ever had adorable little peely feet.

I take the time to capture the details in the nursery and around the house, because I know they will be such fun details to look back on in the future. Such care was taken on this adorable, colorful nursery and I want this little one to be able to look back at it when she is older.

Those little faces! I make sure I get it all. I also make sure I photograph your first babies, of the furry variety.

This family is going to be welcoming a new member of the family this year. I’m so glad they can look back on these images from when they were just a little unit of three.

Midtown Magic

Last year our session was in the natural beauty of tall grasses and oak trees. This year they wanted to mix it up and chose this super fun city session. I am so glad we were able to capture all the special things about them right now...like how tall these kiddos are getting, and those adorable little front tooth nubbins she has coming in. Or how hard he laughed when I asked if he was thirteen and he showed me his age with his fingers, as three-year olds are prone to do. These are the little moments they'll be so glad they have forever.

This spot in midtown Sacramento was as vibrant and fun as this family's personalities, with plenty of room to run and play. I hadn't shot here before, but this might be a new fave spot!

Those eyelashes. Come on.

Thanks again for a great time, guys! See you next year!

Ready to capture your family's special brand of magic? Let's plan your session!

downtown fun

I love working with my clients to craft the perfect session for their unique family. In this case, we decided to revisit their former Midtown Sacramento neighborhood to walk familiar city streets and end the session at their favorite coffee shop. I love that when they see these images, they'll always remember this fun-filled morning spent spinning, jumping, waving at passing trains, tickle fighting, shadow dancing and eating and drinking things with chocolate in them. : )

The early morning hour gave us such fun shadows to play with!

Look at the joy on brother's face as he runs into his big sister's arms! Priceless.

I love the sentiment of this mural. I love their shadows. But that little foot sticking out is my favorite. I die.

The way Mom's hands and his hands are both folded the same way...  The way she's looking back to make sure her brother can keep up... these are the moments I am glad they will have forever.

This is one of my favorite images ever! You can just tell how much fun they're having.

Let's create a session that tells the perfect story of your life. Contact me so we can start planning!

ALOHA

It seems like Mother's Day is the perfect time to post this sweet newborn lifestyle session I had with this little three-month old peanut recently. He chose to come into the world quite a bit earlier than expected, but if you had mamas as awesome as these, you’d want to hurry up and join them, too.  : )

There is nothing more enjoyable for me as a photographer than to be invited into a family's home to spend time witnessing them tenderly stoking their baby's forehead, snuggling him close, marveling at his every tiny and perfect feature and just generally loving on each other. <sigh>

Every room in their home was so fun and a great reflection of who lives here, but I think my favorite might be the nursery with its palm tree wallpaper, surfboard and cool gallery wall. #luckykid

Little Sheppard, I hope when you are older and look back on these photos you can see how incredibly much you are loved. Sam and Q, thank you for inviting me into your home to spend this precious morning with you. If you ever want to do a session in Hawaii, you know who to call! : )

If you want your own family captured in this way, let's chat!

A FALL FLASHBACK

As we head into spring it's fun to take a look at this session from this fall – how adorable is this little family? Oh man... I am such a sucker for little two-toothed baby grins. This was such a delightful session. More babies and doggies, please!

Want your own session? Let's talk!

Miss Millie

I was lucky enough to come and spend the morning with little Millie and her family. Many years ago I was on hand to photograph her older siblings, so it was so fun to be able to come back and see them as big brother and sister this time around. I had a great time listening to the running commentary from the older kids and seeing how this group is coming together as a family of five.

It may have been cold and rainy outside, but inside was cozy and snuggly and full of love. I'm so glad I could document those early moments so you have them forever.

Let me capture your family in this same way... contact me to talk about a session!

CATCHING UP

There are so many sessions that haven't made it to the blog! Here is another one of the minis from before the holidays. This little guy had us running all through the park:

That little curl. Come on.

So sweet. I wish I could get in a time machine and have images like this with my 18-year old, 6'2" little boy. Sob!

From the archives: Mama and me mini session

On the eve of doing more mini sessions tomorrow, I'm realizing I never posted a bunch from last year! Better late than never, right?

This little guy and his mama were so much fun. We basically let him loose in the park and we followed him around. He was full of curious energy! Seriously, I have the best job!

Mini session cuties

For all of you who wonder what we can get in a mini session timeframe, here is one of the families from one of my mini sessions a couple of weeks ago. Who knew you could have this much fun in such a short amount of time?

Permission Granted

I give you permission to embrace silly. 

To put your phone away and concentrate on your family completely. 

To get dressed up. And wade right into the river anyway. 

To throw rules out the window, just for the next hour. 

To show your love.

This guy told me right from the get-go that he wasn't smiling and definitely wasn't showing his teeth. OK. Sure. #gotcha

Magic hour is my favorite.

I couldn't decide if I liked this image better in black + white or color, so I'm putting both in. What's one more?

Before and after. Personally, I like the wet and sandy look better : )

I love how she is looking at her Mama.

He would still be in there throwing rocks if it were up to him. : )

On my getting to know you questionnaire, Mom wanted to remember how happy her family is and how much they love each other. I hope when they look back on these images, they will always remember this warm summer day at the river, and they feel this love.

Want your own session like this? Contact me so we can set something up!

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

1. Because time is flying by
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling like time seems to pass more quickly every year. One minute I had a little baby boy and now suddenly he’s getting ready to graduate from high school. I just wish I could stop time! I can’t stop it, but moments can be frozen with photography. I can see him with his cute little blond curls and knuckle dimples anytime even though now he’s 6’2”. Once you have these images you can revisit your family at these stages again and again. Your children will never be this young again. Your family will never be exactly the way they are today. The time to capture now is now.

People tell me they’re too busy to book a session. They want to wait until things slow down a bit. Newsflash – life doesn’t get less busy. You may be knee deep in diaper changes and feedings now, but later it’ll be carpools, homework and soccer practices. The stages change, but life is always going to be full. We can always find time for things that are important to us; and this should be one of them. Your future self thanks you.

2. Because you need to be in photos, too
In so many cases, one parent is the family photographer – diligently capturing those soccer games and birthday parties – but as a result not in any photographs. Your children want photographs of you and with you, and you owe it to them to do that. 

3. Because your family doesn’t care what you look like
The excuse I hear the most for not booking a session is, “I want to lose weight before I get photos taken.” Well. I have to say that when I look back at photos of my mom and me, or old photos of my long gone relatives, never once have I thought to myself, “Boy, she should have waited to take this photo until she was thinner.” And neither will your children. The fact is, whatever your weight is right now is the way your family has been seeing you anyway – they love you and will want to remember you just as you are. (Besides, do you think if there are no photos of the weight then it didn't happen? Come. On.) 

If you don’t want to capture yourself as you currently look in photos, what are your actions teaching your children? Are you saying that you are only worthy of remembering if you meet some sort of ideal criteria? We are all works in progress, and the fact that we are here on the planet and have people we love and love us is reason enough to get in front of the lens. And, not that I don’t have confidence in your weight loss goals, but what if you never lose that weight? You’ll live out your life with no photos of you for your family to cherish one you’re gone. So, listen…get photos taken now. And next year. And the year after that. Sometimes you might be heavier. Sometimes you might be thinner. Your family doesn’t care what you look like. They love you the way you love them.  And they deserve to see that love in photographs.

4. Because you just never know
Hopefully you’ll have many, many years of family memories ahead of you. But none of us knows that for sure. And if something were to happen to you or one of your family members, the only thing people have to turn to to remember are the photos. 

5. Because this is a great experience in and of itself (really!)
People (most often dads) dread the shoot as something that is going to be awkward and tedious. Maybe they’re scarred from their own family photo memories (in my house we got dressed up in scratchy clothes and trooped down to the local Olan Mills to pose stiffly in front of the fake backdrops and rest our hands on those weird carpeted little props – remember those?) This scene couldn’t be farther from a Christie Spencer Photography shoot! My everyday magic sessions consist of a family doing something fun together – be it making cookies and playing tickle fight on the couch to heading out into a field and jumping off logs and picking wildflowers. This concentrated time just being a family and paying 100% attention to one another doesn’t happen very often in our busy, multitasking lives. We are often rushing from one thing to another, maybe checking our phones as we interact with our kids. More than once it’s been reported back to me that kids say the shoot was the “best day ever” and I think it’s because the kids just really love that concentrated quality time with their parents.

I'd love to capture these memories for you. Let's talk and plan a shoot for your family.

MAGIC HOUR

I have all kinds of sessions that I've never shared here so I'm planning to roll them out and relive them all again!

This family's session was especially fun because this is a repeat family. It's always such an honor to get to capture families through the years. I love seeing how big the kids have gotten and how the family dynamic changes as the kids get older. We booked the session for my favorite time to shoot: magic hour – that hour right before sunset when the light is golden and beautiful. 

The love they have for one another is so apparent. This first image is my favorite kind of family portrait – I love the way Dad and his daughter are embracing, the way Mom is simultaneously adjusting her daughter's clothes and enjoying her son's goofiness, the golden light... it's all magic. 

Sometimes people tell me they don't think their family is interesting enough for photos. I promise – your family just loving each other and being themselves will be plenty interesting.

There was a lot of jumping and running and tickling and general fun to be had during our time together and the scenery of tall grass and large oaks was a beautiful backdrop for it all. After we were finished and walking back to the car this glorious magic hour light gave me this image with their long shadows behind them. This is why I never put my camera away even when we're done! You just never know when an image is going to appear.

If you're looking to capture images like this of your family, send me a message. I'd love to design a session that's just right for your family.

Fields of gold

When I moved back to California from England in fourth grade, I remember the cover of my history textbook had a photo showing "the golden hills of California" on it and that photo looked just like the hills surrounding my neighborhood. I thought those hills, dotted with oak trees and complemented by a cloudless blue sky were the prettiest things I'd ever seen, maybe because they looked so different from the gray skies and green landscapes I'd been surrounded by in England.

I still find this time of year when the grasses have turned golden to be so beautiful and am surprised to hear other people describe them as dead and brown. When the sun shines through the tall stalks, they shimmer and glow and create the most magical light.

See what I mean?

We were having quite the heatwave when this shoot was scheduled (a high of 106 degrees - ug!), so we made the decision to switch the shoot to the next morning to take advantage of cooler temperatures. Even so, we were still melting out there and were feeling for the triathletes who were competing just steps away from us. If we were this hot and sweaty from just picking a few flowers and walking through the fields, we could only imagine how they were feeling!

Family fun in the country

This was a super fun session with this family on their amazingly beautiful property. I knew it was going to be a great session when I walked in and their footwear was this cool!

This is the second time I've been lucky enough to photograph these boys. They have really grown up in the years since I've seen them...and they've added some pet swans to the family!

Last time I photographed just the boys, but this time I was thrilled to capture memories of the whole family. It's so important that parents and their kids and the love they share are captured to remember forever. 

Having recently lost my stepmom to cancer, every photograph of her is so precious to us. What if something were to happen to you? Do your children have photographic reminders of how much you love them? How you look when you laugh? There is no better time than now to make sure. No one will care that you wanted to lose a few pounds or wanted to grow your hair out first – your loved ones will treasure every last image of you. I'm certain of it.

OK, I'm off my soapbox now. Enjoy some more fun images from this session : )

But really... if you haven't captured your family and what you look like now in the last year, it's really time! It's a fun way to spend time together and when you see the images of your family's love in photographs, you'll be so glad you did. Let's talk about your perfect family session!

and puppy makes five

I traveled to Washington state last week and photographed this adorable family. They just added their newest member, 10-week old Finnegan. Oh my gosh - if I'd brought my bigger camera bag, I just might have tried to smuggle him out of there with me.

As always, the weather here was beautiful (I swear these gloomy weather rumors are a ploy to keep the rest of the country from moving here. I have visited this area during every season of the year and had amazing weather every time. Coincidence? Hmmmm....) This family's yard is like a park and was so green and lush. Due to the drought in California, we had greenery like this for about a nanosecond this year.

I'm not sure who had more energy... the puppy or the cute little guy you see behind him!

There's so much love and energy in this family and I had such a great time capturing it for them. 

If anyone else is interested in having me come to your area to photograph your family, just drop me a line!

what I'm editing today

Just a little sneak peek of the photos I'm editing today... This session could not have been more fun! Golden light, beautiful wildflowers, and a fantastic family sharing a magical evening together. We had some mosquitos try to dampen our fun but we were prepared with bug spray. I didn't think to spray any on my face though, and after the session I realized that anywhere my face wasn't covered by my camera was fair game for the attack. But that's OK – to capture these images, a forehead full of bug bites was completely worth it. Completely.

As you can see from these images, this time of year is pretty amazing for an outdoor session. Contact me about scheduling your own session while we still have this lush greenery!