Stacey Potter Photography » Families

{Yoga Mama} Louisville Colorado Family Photographer

Stacey Potter — Wed, 16 May 2012 18:37:28 +0000

These photos are over 6 months old! I have SO many old shoots to blog before I took my 6 month medical leave. I can’t wait to get them all up-and then all the new family photo/portrait sessions I have been doing lately. AND maternity, AND births. Oooooh, how I love photographing births! So, more to come. You may get multiple blog posts in one day, which is a leap for me.

As a side note, I have so many AMAZING projects I am working on right now, and can not wait to share them all. For starters, I am creating a new photo portfolio site AND a workshop website. I have been teaching every day of the week-and love it. I think my passion really lies in not only taking beautiful photos (there is nothing like captureing that PERFECT image for someone-especially if it is of their children or baby), but also teaching other photographers-especially moms.
So, I had to hire a new office manager for Karma Baby and Stacey Potter Photography, and I found THE perfect person for the position and Kellie is busy training her right now. Kellie, who has been with me for what? Five years? Has to leave to work for her husband’s new business (boo), but I am really happy for their successes. He runs a non profit called Teens for Oceans and kellie’s new job description includes weeks of snorkeling in the Cayman Islands. I just can’t compete with that,

But I did post the job on Boulder Rock’n Moms (if you are not a part of this group you MUST join-it is 3000+ Boulder-area mothers and the info and support on there is invaluable). Anyways, I got a ton of responses. I chose not to post on Craigslist or Monster.com bc I really wanted to give the job to a mom that needs to work and needs to stay at home. And over the years Kellie and I have really perfected our system whereby she has been able to do everything for both businesses on her own time (even if that means at 2am in the morning) and in her own house (which means pj’s for sure, yay!). So, I feel like it is a nice offering to make sure I hire another mom to work with. And I found Denise, who is perfect. It really was a tough choice, I interviewed so many great mamas.

So, if your order is behind or if you are emailing me and I am slacking, it is because I lost my office manager and nanny in the same week. We did find the most wonderful nanny in the world though, so now all is good.

Anyways, can’t wait to share all these great photo sessions I have been doing and tell you all about the workshop ideas and the other two things I am working on. Oh yeah, and if you are a web designer and want family photos done, I really need a revamp of karmababy.com. It is super easy-I have drawn it all out and it mostly just color changes (that hot pink is SO 2005). So contact me if you want to trade.

xoxo stacey

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{Reg’s Family} Lafayette, Co Family Photographer

Stacey Potter — Sat, 12 May 2012 06:21:58 +0000

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

ps, I thought it would be good to post some of my black and whte photography since most of what I put up on the blog tends to be in color, since I love color, but there really is something to be said about a beautifully crafted black and white photo as well. Too bad the days of the darkroom are gone-it was always my dream to have a darkroom in my house-so relaxing to just go in all by yourself and work on black and white photos. Boo.

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{Best Mother’s Day Gift. Ever. I promise.} Boulder Family Photographer

Stacey Potter — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:12:24 +0000

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.

If you are like my husband-you forget. You forget my birthday, our anniversary, Valentine’s day, and Mother’s day. It doesn’t matter that I finally stopped feeling bad about it and crying for two weeks over it and decided to remind you a month before, two weeks before, a week before, and a day before. I still wake up the morning of and you have forgotten.

I still love you. You ARE my husband after all-not bc you are good at remembering things-you suck at remembering things, but bc I love you. I just love you. That’s all. You forget and I still love you. But YOU WILL make it up to me. Just say’n. You WILL.

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

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{Ayden, 2 years old} Lyons Family Photographer

Stacey Potter — Sun, 06 May 2012 18:53:12 +0000

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?

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{The S Family} Broomfield, Colorado Family Photographer

Stacey Potter — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:13:25 +0000

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.

So, I do this thing where I archive and then purge old shoots from my system after a certain time, but I keep them on my main page until I get a chance to blog them. I am THAT behind that I never even blogged Quinn’s newborn session, so I am going to try to post it tomorrow, because she was a beautiful newborn, too, and I want to share her photos. If you notice, this was a “smash the cake” session, meaning that Quinn is now a year old. Yes, very behind.

So, I photographed the S family last week and Amanda was SO gorgeous I insisted that she model for me for my lifestyle product photography workshop this past weekend. And of course she was a perfect model, so you will be seeing these two on the blog quite often in the next few weeks. It was extremely generous of her to model, as her husband is a professional hockey player in Switzerland and they travel the world all year long-only making it back to Broomfield for a few weeks of every year. They are going to Alaska next week, but she still took the time to help me out. Thank you Amanda! I can’t wait for you too see all the photos!

xoxo stacey

ps, don’t you just LOVE how Quinn’s ponytail makes her look like Pebbles? I hope they nickname her that from this blogpost:)

pps, amanda, I have Quinn’s little green bow. I can mail it back or see if Amelia will actually put it in her hair:)

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Boulder Photography Workshop: Looking for Models for 4/28 & 4/29

Stacey Potter — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:54:22 +0000

Calling all Boulder Colorado baby models! I have such a great group of models already lined up for my April 28th and 29th lifestyle baby product photography workshop, but really, really, REALLY need some ethnically diverse babies and toddlers. Mostly babies though.

So, if you have a beautiful baby (they are all beautiful to me, I am not kidding, I am THAT woman in line at the supermarket who is obsessed with talking with and cooing and making silly faces at your baby and you give me weird looks but I keep doing it anyways), that is of a different ethnic background and you want him or her to have a ragingly successful career in baby modeling, please contact me.

The “payment” for modeling is the product your baby models (and we have some really great ones lined up), the digital negatives from not only ME, but 6 other truly fabulous photographers that are participating in the workshop, and then of course the fame and glory that goes along with your baby being in national magazines, ads, product packaging, etc…

I am ALWAYS so thrilled and proud when I see my Amelia on the cover of a magazine or in some random ad as I am flipping through Baby and Child Magazine. Or, when I am strolling through Real Baby on Pearl and spot her on the packaging for some product I shot for. I know I should not be proud, because I am the commercial photographer in charge and CHOSE her, rather than her earning it because she is the cutest thing EVER, but still, that feeling of pride wells up in me.

So, all I am saying is, that if that appeals to you too, please contact me at boulderbabyphotography@gmail.com

Here is a little write up I did last year on getting your child or baby into professional modeling. It is a short write up and is worth reading to see if your baby is right for modeling. Hey, they ARE all cute, but some just don’t love the camera, and take a little longer to warm up.

We also need hot moms and dads, any ethnic background. So if you consider yourself a hot mom or dad, and want to model and get a bunch of awesome free baby and kids products, please also email me. It’s ok if you are just not ethnically diverse. Am I being totally politically incorrect in this blog post? My husband always says I am. If I am someone email me right away to take this down! Please!

So, anyways, we lined up Marisa, the cute little girl in this video to model. She is half Puerto Rican and half Japanese. I just happened to go back to this video of her two years ago to show the owner of the product we are photographing her in how darn cute she is, and just fell in love with this video again. So I wanted to post it. I want more of my photography clients to do videos. If I run some kind of special with video included, would that appeal to you? “Like” me on Facebook and let me know. I will see if i can start a poll or something. Can you do polls on FB?

Isn’t this the cutest freaking video ever? And I love how the photographs are randomly in it, and you can see me at least once off to the side “in action” photographing her. Wish I could make the video bigger, but I don’t have the time right now to figure that out. I think if you click on it it is a link and you can see it bigger. Be sure to turn up your volume on your computer-the song is the BEST.

Ok, please contact me about the multicultural baby modeling and the hot mom and dad modeling in Boulder 4/28 and 4/29.

xoxo stacey

ps, here are some of the other photos that were not really in the video from that session, just to give you an idea of what a video/photography session with me produces. I can not believe this was OVER TWO years ago, time goes by SO quickly!

pps, I just have to be honest and say I was lazy and just copied the photos here from the blog post I did two years ago. So if it looks familiar, that is why.

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{Noa} Family Portrait Photography in Boulder, Co

Stacey Potter — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:08:30 +0000

Not gonna write a lot today-not feeling well. I’m ok, but just not up to talking about photos and photography and being sick and my family nitty gritty and all that. Amelia has been sick for days and then the stomach flu was in our house. But here are some beautiful portraits of the most beautiful family!

xoxo stacey

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{First Haircut} Boulder, Co Child Photography

Stacey Potter — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:55:35 +0000

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

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{Riley and Scott Again!} Broomfield Family Photographer

Stacey Potter — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:25:55 +0000

This is one of my sweetest families. If you have had an in-home proofing session with us then you have seen the beautiful album from when Mom was pregnant with Scott and Riley had just turned three years old. Then, 6 months ago I had the honor of doing baby “socks” newborn photos. I LOVED those newborn photos, I hope dad is over the fact that we put babylegs on his baby boy in his birthday suit.

Anyways, update on health. I felt awful yesterday-almost just went into the ER. But took mega doses of steriods and felt better this morning! Life is good! Get me on some new experimental drug and let’s go. I am ready to be healthy.

Can’t wait to photograph 21 month old Lincoln tonight! It is a beautiful day in Boulder and perfect for photos. Here are his newborn photos if you are curious, wasn’t he the sweetest? Look at that face! Those eyes! His expresssion! Can’t wait to see him again after all this time.

xoxo stacey

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{Kitties and Pumpkins things…} Boulder, Co Family Photographer

Stacey Potter — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:33:33 +0000

Yeah, that is our new kitty Simba, super sweet, right? Not as cute as these two babies, though. It was such a strange Boulder night. It was sprinkling on and off, and the light was just so unique. It started raining too hard at the end, so we scheduled another day a few days later to get a few last photos. Connor is so sweet and bright eyed-here are his newborn photos. He was a perfect newborn, too.

I am finally feeling better, yay! I still am losing like a 1/2lb or 1 lb a day, so I am tired and worn out, but I can feel my belly healing and my symptoms are lessoning. I did cranial sacral therapy yesterday with an expert visiting from Germany. I have never done it before. It was kind of strange. She just moved my body in gentle, weird ways. It felt like a half hour but was really an hour and a half. It was like a dream, and afterwards I felt very dreamy and peaceful. Yeah, this is all classic Boulder-hippie-out-there stuff, but I am willing to try anything. This morning my acupunturist lit sticks on fire in my legs. So there. She heard of some man in Detroit who can energetically heal people, and there is a small part of mine that wants to go seek him out and pay him thousands of dollars to energetically take away my old-woman-witch-disease.

Anywyas, to be proactive I sent out some emails to some crohn’s research centers seeing if they can study my family. The chance of passing it along to your child is 5%. And my Dad passed it on to all FIVE of us. That is just so unusual. They need to take our blood and find a cure or an actual cause. It is such mystery.

Off to a photo shoot at a pumpkin patch now! I love this time of year. We are going to Munson Farms in Boulder-I photographed families there last year and it was beautiful!

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