So sleepy. Why do I blog? oh, bc it is fun and I KNOW people read it and mostly bc I love photography and love when I take a really good photo and can show it off.

What is even better than that is when a whole shoot is awesome. And Ms. Heather over at The Dark Room Diva has created a way for me to now display not just a few of the photos from a session, but ALL of them. How fantastic is that?

I know with the blog images you just get a little sneak peak of some of the photos that I personally liked from a session. Inevitably, the family that I am photographing chooses others as their favorites. and then friends and family chose yet other photos as their favorites.

So, fyi, I have a hard week coming up. No nanny. no husband, last day of school, and lots of emails to get back to, photo sessions to set up if you wrote about a mini session or a full session in the last few weeks I WILL get back to you soon, I promise! I know, I am taking WAY too long, it is just an email, right? No, bc I like to write a ton and put in a lot of info for my clients and chat back and forth so it just ends up taking me a long time, so I mark the email as unread and try to come back to it later. So now I have 165 unread messages. And none of them are spam. They are all emails I have to respond to.
I am not complaining here, just explaining.

So, as far as the blog, I put up the photos that I love, and the rest are never seen (except by the clients). Now that Heather has given me this really simple way to display the entire gallery, I get to, for the first time, show you ALL the photos from a shoot. So, while I won’t do this every time, I will for certain shoots here and there. Basically, that means when I have time. Which is never. But I will make the time anyways.

The picture below is a glimpse into MY world. I am sitting up in bed on my laptop while my two little ones are sleeping soundly right next to me. Ah, that is a good life right there. And above is a slideshow of a gorgeous senior. Just wanted to get *something* up before I fell asleep by accident.
xoxo stacey

I just wanted to get something up tonight-I just got back from photographing a birth-being a birth photographer is really the best job in the world. I actually charge way less than I would a normal session for photographing births simply because I LOVE to do them. I became a birth doula at age 21 just for that reason and now that my first passion is photography and my second passion is babies (well, my first passion is MY babies, and then other people’s babies and then photography).

Anyways, beautiful baby Sammy was born tonight at 8:17pm, the birth photos are amazing and I can not wait to post them! One for tonight-I will post the color photos from baby A’s session tomorrow-I am on my laptop so the black and white is all I have right now-and no watermark or anything.  Just happy to get a photo up, any photo, just for tonight. Especially a newborn one. I love this baby, she is close to my heart. Love those eyes! Isn’t she gorgeous? True, she is over 6 months old now, I have a million photos to post from before I took my medical leave, so I WILL be able to post photos every day now. Off to bed now!

xoxo stacey

ps, check back tomorrow and let me know if you like my black and white photography better or my color better. I *really* want to know. Do I have the talent for black and white photography? I like to think that people are attracted to the colors in my photos, but just had a client who told me she preferred black and white photography, so I did all the photos in both color and b&w, and so now I am wondering. So leave a freaking comment already! I got over 500 unique visitors to my blog the other day, so I KNOW you are reading this. So tomorrow, i expect some comments.

Reg is a dear friend but also the best sales manager I could ask for.  And what is a better bonus to the employee of a family photographer than photos of their own family? I mean, besides more money and travel and good benefits. I peronsally LOVE and truly value beautiful photography. *Especially* when it is of MY own children. Check out the photos here and here. That is my little family, compliments of Jinky Art. That was MY dream come true a few months back.

So, anyways, Tommy (Reg’s husband) had the kids ALL weekend, bc Reg is now into her own beautiful photography and starting her own photography business and did the workshop I taught a few weeks back (or was it last week? I can not remember, things are becoming a blur again-uh-oh).

And so Tommy spent all week with the boys (all 4, yes FOUR of them four and under). and by Sunday night he was wiped. So I got some quick shots of the boys, more like outtake photos but really the type of photos I LOVE. So here they are. Reg, I love you! You are fabulous in every way and I love your stylie family. I was gong to suprize you with prints but couldn’t wait to show you because they are all so freaking cute. Jett grew up so fast!

xoxo stacey

The best, easiest, most-likely-to-please mother’s day gift you could ever imagine giving your wife who gave unbearably painful birth to your child(ren) and who dedicates her life to making a beautiful family life for you and them is now being handed to you. Handed right over to you in a really simple and easy way.

You guys may not follow my blog, but if you are reading this post-then it means your wife probably does. And SHE knows that my husband forgets every event-bc I write about it EVERY time it happens. My husband does NOT follow my blog, and I guess that is a good thing.

So, do the most simple, most meaningful thing for your wife this mother’s day and give her the thing she wants most-beautiful, real, breathtaking photos of your little ones. What is the one thing you would make sure to take in a fire after grabbing the kids and the pets? Photos. That is really the only thing that is priceless to a mother.

And I have to tell you a few things, bc I have been doing this a long time and I KNOW how much dads just love getting dressed up in their stiffest Sunday clothes and painfully smiling on cue to the camera while they pinch their kids from behind to do the same.

That is NOT me. We pick a beautiful outdoor location, like Chautauqua or Wonderland Lake, and we walk around, and just have fun talking, running, throwing babies up in the air (and catching them too), playing one-two-three swing, blowing bubbles. NOT smiling at the camera but instead laying a blanket in the field and reading your little one a book, or giving him fits of giggles with raspberries on his belly or tickles in place of the mechanical, frozen family portraits.

In fact, I hate the word portrait. I only use it sometimes because I want people looking for family portraits to find my site on google. Otherwise, I would NOT call my photos portraits EVER. They are more like real, spontaneous capturings of who your child is in this moment of time. But nobody ever googles ”spontaneous-capturings-of-who-my-child-is-in-this-moment-of-time-photographer,” so instead I fake-use the word “portrait” every now and then and people can find me.

When I send your wife the info on how to prepare, I will say things like “DON’T wear your sunday best. I love jeans and a good t shirt. Dress real. You want to remember who you guys were back when, right? Not who you wanted everyone to think you were.

I love the photos of my mother snuggling me as a baby in her cute 70′s bootie shorts and hippie tank top. Not the one where she is wearing a dress suit with shoulder pads (what WAS that fad all about anyways?) with a black backdrop behind us, and yes, she is pinching me to smile at the camera. Which one do you think is framed in my home?

Bottom line: a family photography session with me is painless, and could actually (gasp) be fun and enjoyable. And if you STILL doubt me, then just suck it up and do it for your wife. Because she is a great mother. And it is mother’s day.

So, I have two options:

Option 1: A mini photography session. I will either email you a gift card to print out yourself, and you can place it in a card of your choosing, OR you can pick up (in south Boulder) a beautifully wrapped gift card. This spring’s mini sessions ($195) include a 20-30 minute session with me, 10-15 beautifully edited images in an online gallery, 1 mounted 11×14, and 2 mounted 5×7 prints. No additional purchases required.

Option 2: A full custom session which I am offering at 20% off for Mother’s day, I will tailor a very special 1 to 2 hour custom photo shoot for you and your family. The $200 session fee which is actually $160 at 20% off gets you 35-45 beautifully edited images in an online gallery, and an in-home proofing session with my amazing sales manager Reg, who looks like Angelina Jolie (yeah, I am REALLY pulling the out sales tactics for the daddies here now). She shows you samples of prints, canvases, albums, etc… and helps you order from her ipad. Bc dads love Ipads. It’s true. There is a $400 minimum purchase requirement IF you love the photos, which you will, because I actually do create really beautiful photos of you and your children.

Again, you have the option of having a printed gift card for the full session or picking up a beautifully wrapped gift card. I am not trying to overuse the word “beautifully” here, it is just happening, bc it is late (2am), and I am late in posting my mother’s day mini sessions.

So, email me at boulderbabyphotography@gmail.com or call me at 720-310-0336 or 720-345-4674 and I will get the gift card to you asap so you can a) stop worrying about what to get for your wife for mother’s day. Bc she made it super easy for you (as I do for MY husband) by forwarding you this email or b) so you can take back whatever lame kitchen item you got her and get her something she will love forever. Can you believe for christmas one year my husband got me a dart board and an electric blanket? He did. It is true. Sad, but true. A dart board. A dart board. And I was pregnant with his second child, which makes it even worse.

I DO limit my mini sessions to 25, and they DO get filled up pretty quickly. This is actually NOT a sales tactic, but is really true, so if you want the mini versus the full be sure to email or call me today. The full sessions are limitless, and can be used any time.

The fine print:

*Mini sessions must be booked and held before July 1st, 2012.

*All mini sessions are held at Wonderland Lake in North Boulder. Bc it is gorgeous there and it is easy for me to get perfect, beautiful photos there in a short period of time. Or Martin Park, bc it is also beautiful and you can see the flatirons from there, and it is south Boulder versus north Boulder and the drive makes a difference for some babies.

*If you are doing maternity or newborn photos, these must be done in my home studio if it is a mini session. If it is a full session, I come to YOUR home so it is a bit easier on mom. If you live in south Boulder I will make an exception and do a mini maternity or newborn session at your home.

*All session fees are non refundable and must be paid in full to reserve your date.

*extra prints and digital negatives can be purchased separately.

*mini sessions have limited availability (25 is my limit)Anything more than that just makes my family and I crazy. In fact, 25 is really kind of on the verge of crazy.

xoxo stacey

So, I am not sure if I shared this, but I ALWAYS wanted a little white haired (with lots of curls) baby boy. Just like Ayden here. But I married a red head, and, to tell the honest-to-god truth, my hair looks blond but is really very dirty blond or you *could* even say brown. If you had to, you know. But I don’t have to, so I say dirty blond.

When I was little, everyone in my family had this gorgeous, long blond hair. And I was the only one with brown hair. I felt so left out. Because of that, AND because they never replaced the family photo above the living room sofa after I was born, so I grew up with the ONLY family photo blown up huge in the house being that of my four siblings-and not me.

Poor stacey, right? I always teased my brother, who is just a year older than me, that the baby in the picture was indeed ME, and our parents did not love him enough to have him in it. How cruel is that? Really, that is how I felt. I thought my parents did not love me enough to have me in the photo. (Insert crying smile-circle-guy here). But that *could* have contributed to my going in the direction of family photography versus something else, like say fashion or even non-profit photograpahy. I doubt it, I really just am one of those over-the-top baby lovers so it makes sense that I do baby and family photography.

Anyways, I always asked my mom why I could not have yellow hair like the rest of the family. Her response was always “Oh honey, one day, you can have yellow hair, too, if you want.” And so, at age 16, I got me some yellow hair and it has been that way ever since:)

But, the wonders of family genetics-I DID end up having a sweet, white, curly haired little boy. Check out the photos on the blog I kept for Elijah when he was a baby/toddler. Was he not the cutest little boy ever? He contends with Ayden, that is for sure. But Ayden is just so sweet, I can not stand it!

The other baby I always dreamed of having was half Asian. Maybe for my second marriage, lol.

xoxo stacey

ps, taking off work now to go picnic with my babies at the park, such a beautiful, perfect picnic-day here in Boulder! Hope you are all enjoying it too. Please post to my da@* blog already,and tell me what YOU are doing today.  I see my stats, I KNOW you are reading this. Comment, pretty please?

pps, do any of my photographer friend followers know how to make the sky blue in photos like the family portrait at the bottom of the post? I would love a link to a photo shop tutorial or just an email…my clients and I would love you forever. I think the below portrait would have THAT much more impact if they sky were not blown, kwim?

Taken at my workshop for photographers on baby and child lifestyle product and commercial photography at the Scott Capenter Park In Boulder just off 30th and Arapahoe. Great location to take “urban” looking photos.

I *love* this company. I have been working with Urban Baby Bonnets for years-since they were just an itty bitty Etsy store. The other day, I walked down Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, and saw THREE babies wearing Urban Baby Bonnets. That is a sign they are about to become BIG. I know that some big stores are taking interest in them, and I really believe these lifestyle product photos are going to help them reach the next level with advertising, magazines, blog exposure, etc… I have a bunch more photos to share, but here are just a few. More to come. And I *do* want to do a post some of the awesome photos my photographer participants took. I am so proud of them, I feel like a mama bear.

Anyways, Urban Baby Bonnets are the best hats EVER. They protect your child perfectly from the sun, then you flip it back when indoors. And they are reversable. Worth every penny. We have a million of them, but that is a perk of being a baby product photographer:) This was the last shoot of the weekend, and I did NOT organize the baby models very well, so if you have a 6 -10 month old and you want them to be a super model, please contact me asap so I can get a few more photos for this wonderful mama.  I work mostly with mom-owned companies -in case you don’t follow my blog and haven’t heard me say that ten times in the last month. I guess I repeat myself all the time because you all don’t comment enough on my blog and it is hard to believe that you all follow it, so comment on my blog already! But when I meet you, you tell me all about my kids, and you recongize them in public, and you know me, even though I don’t yet know you.

So, today we had to buy a new car, because yes, I totalled my car a couple of weeks ago. We were all ok, just some whiplash-I need a massage-bad-so if anyone out there is a massage therapist and LOVES my photos and wants to trade for family photography, let me know asap. I just need to REST. Well, I have been having this problem where I can’t wake up to my alarm clock and am oversleeping, I guess kids are a natural, built in alarm clock. But I have been sleeping a lot. I gotta get well.

Anyways, we did buy a new car-our FOURTH Subaru Impreza-the 2012 gets 36 mpg, which is great for Adam as he drives around all day long (he works with autistic and develomental disabled children and adults).

We went to the Boulder store first, and they were RUDE and expensive. If you are going to buy a Subaru, take my advice and go to the Longmont location. They are courteous, give you a great price, and the treatment is outstanding. They washed our 2011 Impreza while we were waiting, and gave us a great loaner car until our new car arrives in a week or so.  And free oil changes forever.

I am still in shock that the Boulder Subaru guy walked away from me mid-sentence when we started to say we were going to shop around, and didn’t even shake my hand or say good-bye. He just walked away. Seriously? I would highly recommend the Longmont store. We worked with Todd, and he was fabulous-ask for him if you go.

So…I have been putting so much time and effort into really perfecting this workshop, and I am excited to take it around the country! I am building the workshop website right now and partnering with Portfolio Sitez, which I love (so easy to use and they have gorgeous templates and excellent customer service-you can tell I am all about good customer service??.

The workshops are one of those things that give me fire in my belly. In college, I volunteered for a group that provided water filtration systems for villages in Haiti (this was pre-earthquake). The leader of the group was a chaplain, and he was always talking about doing the things that “give you fire in your belly”. Like helping the people in Haiti.

So, even though that was 12 years ago (dating myself, yes-I am), I have tried to live by that motto, and it truly has lead me on incredible path. I do what I love for a living as a photographer because of him. I created Karma Baby, my own small label baby product company, because of what he said. And now I am pursuing teaching other photographers because I feel that passion in my belly.

I am still sick, I still have two kids (which is WAY harder than one, not double hard, more like 4x as hard, not to discourage my clients-I still want to photograph your next newborns, but realistically it is harder, just say’n), I still struggle with my husband (we are both naturally fiery creatures), and the day to day struggles don’t ever really go away. But there is this FIRE is my belly, and I am following it. And I feel great. Happy.

xoxo stacey

ps, sorry this post ended up being a critique on everything. I am in one of those moods. I need to sign up for Yelp and get my Yelp on.

Gorgeous family. Beautiful Boulder day. I was *supposed* to do Amanda’s maternity photos but the day of our session she went into labor with baby Quinn.

If you are wondering….the workshop I led this weekend was FABULOUS! It went much better than I expected. I am still a bit sick, so that was a challenge,  so there were a few things I forgot to bring and a few things I will change, but overall I feel like the participants walked away with a TON of info to digest and the product companies are going to walk away with THE most amazing photos.

Let me tell you about a photography workshop. Basically, it is you and 6-12 other really amazing or amazing but-just-starting-out photographers that get together for a week or a weekend and focus on ONE topic. This topic happened to be baby and child and maternity lifestyle photography. Which is a very specific niche of family photography that I LOVE to do. Just LOVE. Not only do I get to capture the beautiful, quirky expression that your child makes right now that you may one day forget, but I get to use that expression to sell products that I believe in. Do I believe in wearing your baby? Yes, I think it is one of the most important things you can do for your baby (if you can, otherwise, some good laying down, belly-to-belly-time works, too).

So, I only work with products I believe in, because I want that company’s customer base to see in my photography just what I see-warmth, love, nurturing, bonding, fun, etc… I mean, I photograph all sorts of baby products, from pants and dresses to teethers and strollers. I probably wouldn’t do an ad campaign that aims at showing how a bucket seat (aka, the infant carseat) is convenient (insert cheesy man’s voice here) “not only for the car, but wherever you go!”). That would just make me sad. We have to pick up our babies and hold them tightly, right?

So, this weekend, I had the best time. I got to teach 8 other photographers how to do a type of photography that I am so passionate about. I have already gotten so much feedback but am also going to send out a detailed questionnaire so that I can perfect this workshop and take it to other cities-focusing on bringing together local, mom owned companies with photographers in their area (I also believe in keeping it local). Babyhawk IS in California, not Colorado, and so are a lot of my product clients, but for the workshop purposes I hope to be the one to network together local companies with local photographers. Just a little added bonus of the workshop IF you decide to do one-you will be connected with clients and thus be able to start up this new part of your business that focuses on baby products right away.

Photographers: if you are interested in this workshop (I think I am going to be able to keep the cost low) and want me to bring it to your city, PLEASE email me at boulderbabyphotography@gmail.com or leave a comment in this post’s comment section. I am thinking Utah next. Why? Because it is so close and because there are SO, so many fabulous photographers there.

So, to continue, the workshop is divided into teaching and shooting, and of course I teach as I shoot.  I organized 7 baby, child, or maternity product companies, many of them local to Boulder or the Denver area, and we would spend about 2 hours shooting, then 2 hours teaching. It was a fast, packed weekend, but was SO much fun and (at least the participants are telling me this) the photographers left with feeling confident shooting products and knowing how to get lifestyle product photography bookings.

We got really phenomenal images for the companies that participated. Here are just a few from one of the Baby Hawk shoots I did. I wish I could post them all but that would be WAY too many photos. I AM going to try and post every day so there are a ton of images coming on to the blog, so you *may* see more of Baby Hawk when we did their second shoot at the Boulder Farmer’s market. These particular photos were taken at Chautauqua in southwest Boulder.

Can you tell I am happy? I am.

xoxo stacey

Ok, well I am so, so, so excited about my friend Jaime, moving here to Boulder from New York. She is just the most amazing, creative, beautiful photographer I know, and she will be living here. In Boulder. Where I get to see her every day. She is such a brilliant artist, that I wanted to share some of her work here on my blog.

What Jaime does is breathtaking. I asked her if I could purchase the photo below as a piece of art work for my home. As is. I did not realize that she does this thing where she puts YOUR child into the photo. It is called her Daydream Series.

I may have mentioned before, that one of my favorite artist/photographers is Gregory Colbert, and he does something similar. In 2002, while I was traveling around Europe, I saw his first exhibition (Ashes and Snow) in Venice. It was an incredible experience. They hung his photos from strings from the ceiling in this old (like hundreds of years old) artillery building. And it was dark, and cool, on a hot June day in Venice, and when I got half way through the exhibit there were just a bunch of people sitting on the concrete floor watching a screen with a movie playing of a beautiful man and woman swimming with whales. And when that part was done, I continued to walk through the old building looking at these images-and it was just awe-inspiring.

Even though I was back packing through Europe, and had no money, I bought a print anyways (my biggest expense on my trip). But by the time I got home it had been bent and ruined. I should have shipped it right away. I was so sad, but thought I could get another one down the line. Later I did purchase one of his books, teeny tiny, just to gaze at it, but the poster I loved so much is no longer available.

I must have an affinity for elephants, because Jaime has created so many beautiful photographs with different animals, and the one I wanted was the elephant. I will be commissioning Jaime to do one of these when she arrives in Boulder at the end of the summer. If you want to set something up with her ahead of time, you can call her at 516.769.3709 or email her at jaime.bley@gmail.com. She will be a huge success in the Boulder/Denver area.

She also does family photography. It has a totally different style than mine, and I can not wait to collaborate with her on projects and see what we can come up with. It would be interesting for us to shoot together and see what totally different kinds of photographs we create.

I will see you soon, jaime! Best wishes on your journey to Boulder.

xoxo stacey

So, just wanted to update you all since some of you are on facebook with me and 6 of you had canceled sessions withe me this week… I did end up at the hospital. Sunday night, I lost a lot of blood and it was too thin and I had to go to the ER. I am doing much better, and just got back, and am starting a new amazing experimental drug tomorrow (that I have to inject myself, yuck), so should be fine in a few days.

The last few days have just been a dream. I have no idea why we give birth in the hospital. If we were sick people go-I know, bc I was sick and it felt all icky and sad to me. I had a beautiful view of the foothills from a tiny window that was all the way across the room from my bed. So it was a weird-dreamy-like-claustrophobic, day spa. Such a strange experience to be in a hospital. The nurses at Boulder Community are awesome . And now I am fine. So bring on the photo sessions-it is not work, photography is the love of my life and the more I do, the better I feel.

More tomorrow.

xoxo staey