I love maternity photos and do not get to do them as often as I like.  I really think every pregnant woman should do maternity photos at least once. It is such an amazing time, your body is doing this incredible thing. Your baby is living inside of you. I know it is hard sometimes, because women tend not to feel as beautiful as Katarina looks, right? I gained 55lbs in my last pregnancy, and somehow managed to still take amazing photos with no photoshop. Here are my maternity photos, if you are interested (super personal, but hey!). I actually felt sexy and beautiful after I saw them. The pregnant body is art, and so that is what I try to capture.

So, anyways, back in Boulder! My photography conference was so amazing. I learned so much from the very best photographers and even got to spend some time with some of the really great ones, like Me Ra Koh, who is the sweetest woman in the world. If you don’t know, she has a scholarship program for aspiring photographers. Since I get so many emails from mother’s wanting to learn photography or learn how to become professional photographers, I thought it would help to mention this. Basically, you get everything you need to start out-a camera from Sony, lenses, business coaching, a custom website, and on and on.

Because photography has been such a traditionally male field, Me Ra Koh is trying to empower woman to get out there and follow their dreams. And you know the interesting thing? Out of over 15,000 photographers at my conference, 65% of them were woman. It is the power of moms with cameras that have that special gift to know and see the essence of a baby, or to really relate to and understand the way a bride and groom look at each other. So, if this is something you are interested, please apply! I *wanted* to mentor an aspiring photographer some time back, and then LIFE just was too much for me and could not handle what I already had on my plate. I will soon, I am sure, but for now I just need to catch up with it all. So this would be a great opportunity for all of you wanting to do photography for a living.

Anyways, so nice to be back in Boulder. Las Vegas is not the place that I would choose to have a conference, but it works. I won $100 at Texas Hold em’, but lost my smart phone (for the second time this month, plus I dropped a third phone into the bath tub). So right now I am phoneless, but have voicemail. Jeesh!

Lots of shoots scheduled, I can’t wait for all these warm weather sessions coming up!

xoxo stacey

y doing a magical thing

So here is my sweet Amelia. Creative idea, I know. I got it from my very favorite photographer, Jinky Art, whose work is just amazing! I thought I should just post one photo today, as I have had a super busy week of shooting and will be gone for the next week for a photography conference. So excited! So much to learn. So, for now, here is my sweet baby.

So, I just love this little family. I have been photographing Aviva since she was a newborn (well, six weeks), and just adore her. Here are her four month baby photos as well. I love those big, beautiful eyes! Such a sweet little girl. I can not believe we got her undressed in a field in the middle of Boulder in February! That is just crazy! Every photo of her from this session was just so stunning-she is the happiest little baby. I didn’t even really have to do anything to make her smile and laugh. Every few seconds, she would take a break from whatever blade of grass or rock she was exploring to look up and smile and laugh at her mother. They are so sweet together. I can’t wait to do her one year portraits and see how big she has gotten. This almost 8 month old baby weighs exactly the same as my 18 month old! I believe it, and yet can’t, because although Amelia definitely looks delicate, she is not skinny or anything. And even though Aviva has got the chubby rolls, she is not a super fat baby. Either way, it was funny to pick her up-I was so surprised at the weight!

So, we are packing up and leaving for Las Vegas in the morning! I am so excited to do this photography conference again. The field’s leading photographers will all be teaching there, it has been hard to narrow down what classes I will take. I will be sure to post photos from it! Here are the photos from last year. I will try to post a bunch while I am there, but I have a feeling I may not have any time to sit at the computer. Maybe more when I get back.  Enjoy the snow while I am gone! Even though today is so gorgeous, I hear the weather is about to change…

xoxo stacey

So I have been super busy shooting this week. I just got back from photographing THE most beautiful pregnant woman (and she is Swedish, and you all know how beautiful we Swedes are). Anyhow, I just wanted to post this cute one of Aviva. We are leaving for my photography conference this weekend, but depending on how the children are I *may* be able to post more tomorrow. There were so many fabulous ones to choose from, but I think this is my favorite:)

*oh, and by the way, yes, this was done just a few days ago, in the middle of WINTER, in Boulder, Colorado if you can believe it.

Castle Rock is so far, thank you for driving all the way to Boulder for the session! So, it is not often as a photographer that I get a perfect baby like this. Otto is such a calm, happy baby. Totally easy to get to smile and had fun the whole time. Even though we stretched the session for a longer time than most one year old babies can last, Otto did great. Towards the end he was not as smiley, but we gave him as many sugar filled cupcakes as he wanted, and that worked.  It is almost his birthday, after all.  Mom-gorgeous. Dressed in THE most perfect outfits (we have the very sames tastes), and dad, well, I won’t say how good looking he is.  I just loved how they brought the best props-wooden chairs, a wooden bench, cupcakes of every color, cute etsy animals-you name it.  Really, just a perfect little family. I wish I could post every single photo from this session, but here are just a few:)

So, things in my life are FANTASTIC right now. I might just be happy because the cleaners just came and the house is so spick and span. Or happy that my husband, who  forgets my birthday and anniversary every year, planned a night out for Valentine’s day (even though he forgot that I hate to celebrate Valentine’s day bc it is too commercial and forced and not as good as our anniversary). Or, because both of my children are healthy, FOR ONCE this winter. Elijah had an ear infection last weekend though, but we nipped it in the bud with some garlic oil and then some anitbiotics. Could be because Amelia is sleeping through the night for the most part now. Or because I finally did my 2009 taxes (yes, you read right, 2009). Or, because we are leaving for Las Vegas this weekend for my photography conference. Whatever it is, things are so great right now and so low stress. Life is good.

I have a couple more sessions to post this week, so check back!

xo stacey

Such a sweet little boy. He spent a lot of his first two weeks fighting jaundice, so we were not able to photograph him until he was three weeks old, but he was still so tiny and sleepy! He was so calm the whole time he was awake, too, just looking out at the world like he had been here many times before. Just perfect!

Things are going so well here right now. I have decided to sell Karma Baby, my other business. I have had it for 6 years now, I can’t believe it! I created a sling design after Elijah was born. I sewed about 20 of them before realizing that if I sewed for a living, I would become quickly miserable.  So, I started out by hiring five home seamstresses. Adam would cut the fabric for them and they would take it home and sew the slings. But then, I got some really wonderful exposure in some big magazines, and the seamstresses were not enough for us. We quickly went to having our slings made in a sewing factory.

There have been ups and downs. I did great in 2007. It seemed at that point that the endless hours of hard work that I had put into finding retailers and getting my name out there had worked. Life was good. And then…the economy tanked. People just could not afford to buy higher end baby products as much, and sales quickly fell. It was a scary time for me, as I had invested a lot of my money into inventory to be able to have stock on hand for the kinds of orders we were getting.

That same year, I started my photography business. Simply because I loved taking photos of babies and children. I had no idea that it would lead to a successful business, I was just doing it for fun. But, it took off right away and now I am so happy just being a photographer. In the meantime, I let my Karma Baby office manager take over most of the work, and I focused on my photography. I stopped trying to grow the sling business and let it go quite a bit. That same year we did get asked by Target.com if they could sell our slings, and that was a life saver for the business. It brought in a steady and reliable income.

But, now, with all the media frenzy the last year about the danger of OTHER brands of slings, liability insurance has skyrocketed to such a point that a small business can not sustain the costs. I have seen a lot of other companies shutting down because of this very reason.

So, I decided this year to either sell Karma Baby or clear out the inventory. I am talking with a couple people about purchasing it out right, and that is great! I just really would love for this little baby of a business I grew and nurtured to continue on. It is such an amazing product and I am proud to have created it. I can say that tens of thousands of babies have been carried close to their mothers because of my sling, and that is a great feeling.  Plus, I will have much more time to devote to being a photographer. I am crossing my fingers that it all works out, and will update the news on the blog.

For now, the kids are both healthy, the sun is out, and I am leaving for a shoot here shortly!
xoxo
stacey

Wow! What a week! All Boulder schools were closed for a few days, so I got to spend some time snuggling in with my two little ones. I think I did not leave the house for 5 days or something like that. It was wonderful. Simple, and wonderful.

My baby boy turned 6 yesterday. It really does go by so quickly. I feel like he and I used to be this super team when I stayed home with him and we just played and snuggled all day long. It is different with Amelia, though, since I am shooting so much now and we have a nanny 25 hours a week. I still get a few sweet hours of one on one time with her every day, but it is far off from the days I had when Elijah was a baby. And now he is 6!

Tomorrow we will be having a super hero party for Elijah. He has ONE super hero book, just one. And he is so obsessed with Green Lantern because of it. I have no idea how that happens. You will not find Amelia without a baby doll, and Elijah always loved planes and super heroes. We try very hard to bring our children up in a more gender neutral way, and yet they have their natural tendencies. So, lots of preparation here for the party today. I will be going to the fabric store soon to see if I can make green capes for 25 kids. Yeah, it is going to be a big party!

I never really put up a blog post about Lucy’s newborn session, so I thought I would put up a few more photos. She was so sweet and SO loved by here parents. Her papa was especially adoring on her throughout the entire session, which I love, love, love to see! Some fathers are just baby-people, you know what I mean? And some love their babies, but they are not really baby-people. I definitely married a baby lover, and whenever we argue he always redeems himself to me when I see him with the kids.

Anyways, I had a nice little break the last few weeks, catching up on taxes, paper work, etc… and have a bunch of sessions scheduled so more to come!