But, you have to know how to do photojournalistic photography well. And this, I do NOT know as well as I know how to be a portrait photographer. Yes, I can get a beautiful portrait of your little one standing in a field with the gorgeous Boulder foothills behind her, but I have not yet mastered photographing inside and doing it in a really artful, creative, fun way, you know?

Those “day in a life” sessions are so, so special. I KNOW people choose me as their photographer because I capture the connection a family has together, and I capture a child or baby’s true personality (all the quirky expressions and such). So, it would be AMAZING if I could come to your home, and photograph you doing what you always do.Capturing the every-day way you connect and the laughter over spilled blueberries.

One thing I know for sure is that I need a few new lenses. I am not just saying that. In my photography circles, it is a joke when someone blames some kind of failure on the type of lenses they have, but really, I think that is a good starting point. My good friend is also a nikon user so I am going to see if I can borrow her good zoom lens (pretty please kim?) for a few days and practice.

If YOU want a day in the life session, I will price it like a family photo session and discount it by 50%. This is outrageous, bc I am not going to spend an hour or two with you and your family, but an entire day. And you will get A LOT more photos.  So, the first person to email me at boulderbabyphotography.com gets this extra special deal. I am so excited! It will be so cool to just hang out with a family all day, photographing them just being them. And capturing the connection and true interactions they have when just being themselves, versus how they are when they know this moment is going to be turned into a portrait. Don’t get me wrong-I DO get the kinds of portraits where families are connecting and, for that brief moment where i have my intern hit me on the head with my flip flop, I do capture true happiness and joy and laughter. But a day in the life is extra special.

If you are a photographer reading my blog right now and do these kinds of sessions, please contact me, I would love to do one of my own family! I know that I can capture them doing what they do, but I am honestly such an important part of their lives, so I need to be in the photos.

It would be the most beautiful album, something I would want to do every year.

So, I am  moving into my new/old house August 1st. I am going to deck it OUT and make it a wonderland for kids. If you have not seen my pinterest page yet, take a look (I love sharing it with others, it is so much fun).

When the house is all ready and beautiful and cluttered and messy as it is in real life, I will have a photographer come to MY house and do a day in the life session.

For now, here are just a few photos I took the other day of my kids, starting in the car (at a stoplight!) after picking up Amelia from preschool, to right before bed where they are playing in the sand at the park in their jammies. My intention was not to do a day in the life type thing, I was taking photos like I always do of them, but they are fitting photos for today’s blog post.

On an even happier note I did the most beautiful session with a really cute 5 year old today. Sunday I get to photograph some old clients who moved out of town and scheduled me in for the few days they would be visiting Boulder. I can’t wait.

xoxo stacey

ps.  Check out the photo of Elijah in the tree. See Simba up there with them? He has grown into this humongous cat somehow in less than a year of life. Check him out here in a photo shoot that I brought him along with as a “prop” bc he was such a darn cute kitten.

The other day we were talking with a new neighbor (we just moved to south boulder), and we were discussing names and nicknames briefly. Amelia named herself “Me-me” right off the bat-as soon as she could start talking. So we call her Me-me or Amelia or Amalea or Ami.

As we were talking about this, she proudly stood up, shook herself off as if to make her presence known to us, and announced that her name is “Amelia, but mommy calls me her firecracker.” And she was so proud, It melted and broke my heart all at once. First of all, it hurt my heart a bit, because when I call her “my little firecracker” it is ALWAYS in reference to how Elijah is my buddha baby and Amelia is, well, quite the opposite.  She did not realize that being a firecracker might not be the best thing to be. And it melted my heart because she was so, SO very proud that mama gave her a very special name.

So, there she is on the left, being the awesome firecracker that she is.

xoxo stacey

ps. this is just another great photo for the product/commercial photo shoot we did for Urban Baby Bonnets. My very favorite hats in the world.  For real, not just because I am their photographer, but because the design works so well and the fabrics are so, so cute. More soon.

pps, only in Boulder will a photographer be so lucky to find a Komby (a vw bus) on every corner and, only in Boulder, will you find a nice and friendly owner to let you stick a couple cute kids in cute hats in it and take some photos. Well, on second thought, aren’t ALL vw bus owners nice and friendly? I doubt it is just a boulder thing.

Of course, I DID bring my two little ones, and the first two photos are of them. How freaking sweet are they? I LOVE them. I brought along another Kim, who is mentoring with me and helping out, and I was teaching on shooting into the sun. And Elijah and Amelia just love to ham it up, so we could not help but get photos of them, too.

Ok, so I have not posted newborn Sammy’s birth photos yet, but will soon. They are really grainy bc he was born at night and in the hospital, and I do NOT use flash, especially at a birth (what birthing mother would tolerate THAT?). So, I just need Kim to run the photos through her spiffy little noise program and then I will put them up on the blog.

So Sam is now 13 days old, and apparently he does NOT like to be photographed. He was just not a happy newborn tonight. But, what we got was sweet, and I still love all the photos, even when he is crying. He can do what he wants.

The last set of photos is of me. Me, me. Kim took photos and video while I was shooting and hanging out with all the little ones. So, this is just a behind the scenes peak.  Can not wait to show you all what the video is for! It is going to be fabulous.

Ok, off to bed at a decent hour tonight.After having the best day just chilling out with my own kids, not working, then spending time doing what I love (being a photographer), I can really rest well tonight. It was a good day.

xoxo stacey

Barb Uil (aka Jinky Art) is just magic. She is my most favoritist photographer, blah, blah, blah, I have said this 8 million times on my photography blog. But really, these photos are beautiful and stunning and sweet and magical. I love them. I can’t wait to move in to our new home so I can put up beautiful big canvases. I still am in awe that she photographed my family. And really captured who we are. For sure.  I strive to be half as good of a photographer as her. As always Barb, I love you! Thank you!

So, news on the being-sick-thing. I am definitely surrounded by loving, supportive people who want me to heal and get better from this chron’s (autoimmune). I called my mom crying yesterday and she jumped on the first flight out there. That is a GOOD mom, right? I have a procedure tomorrow and hopefully we will find out what is going on. I saw a naturpath today and and plugging away with my awesome acupuncturist, Kate, but I am up to 40 mg of predizone (steroids) and ug, that SUCKS. Send me some good healing-belly-energy if you have some to spare.

xoxo stacey

ps. happy jinky art photos of my family are really helping me feel better:) Nothing like beautiful photography of your own family from your favorite photographer to make you happy.

pps. Thank you mom, Luanne, Natasha, Kate, Kellie, Adam, Rich, and Arturo for being such a solid community of support for me. It means everything to me to be supported.

Well, I am the kind of person that just goes for it. You know? I have an idea, and I DO it. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

9 months ago I wrote Jinky an email telling her how fabulous Boulder was, how cool my cohousing community is, and how perfect it would be for her to do one of her US workshops here in Boulder. And….a few months later, she wrote back and said YES!

So, I hosted Barb and 30 photographers from all over the country in my home and community a few weeks ago. It was awesome. I learned so much, and was inspired to change my art in a way that is already filling my heart with joy.

So, whenever, 7 months ago, when we decided to have the retreats here, I asked Barb if she would have time for a family session. This is before i asked my husband. I casually one day, after making sure to make him HAPPY, asked him if we could throw down $5k on a shoot with Barb. My idol.  My favorite photographer in the WHOLE world who is coming to OUR house. He answered with a big fat, absolute, “NO.” Anyways, Barb wrote back and said she had no time as the workshops were hectic and too much was going on.

Two days before she arrived I got a casual call from Barb: “So, Stacey, did we talk about me doing a shoot of your family as a thank you for hosting? I hope you can come up with something that is amazing and totally YOU guys.” In two days. Two days.

So I freaked out. I told all my neighbors and friends and posted on my photography forums that BARB UIL was photographing my family. MY family. In two days. What ideas did they have?

Nothing.

I was taking Amelia on a walk the next day and saw that my neighbors had brought their orange vw bus out of storage. Well, I remembered an awesome shoot that Barb had did with a vw, and thought it would be perfect. AND, I used to be a dead head, (even though I was only 15 when Jerry died)-but I did go to SIX shows and had front row center for the Grateful Dead’s very last show in Chicago. And I wanted to drop out of school and get a vw bus and follow the dead, but a good teacher talked me out of it. So I went on to get my college degree and then my master’s in Boulder where there are a lot of old deadheads anyways.

So the bus idea was perfect. We took it up to this ridge in north Boulder. And got these photos. Is she the most freaking amazing photographer you have ever seen?

Then, casually, she says later that night “It would be cool (or maybe she said neat? I don’t know or remember Australian lingo) if we did a series of shoots with your family in Kombi’s.” Btw, “Kombi” is what they call vw buses in AU. Never heard it before, but I like it.

I posted IMMEDIATELY to my Boulder mom’s groups and to craigslist looking for two more buses. The next night we had an awesome red bus out in a field. The night after that we had an amazing yellow Kombi that was driven into the MIDDLE of a sunflower field. I kid you not. Freaking amazing. A full-on sunflower field.

So, here are a few photos from the first of the shoots. I am not sure why I am so lucky, but I know that the more I open myself to others, the more these amazing things and opportunities land in my lap. I just feel like it is unreal.

Thank you Barb, I love you!

xoxo stacey

These are mine, by the way, and me.  Sunflowers and all. Wonderful, magical shoot. Could not get better than this….

Well, Jinky Art is coming to MY house on Friday for 6 days of workshops in Boulder. I am SO psyched.  Amelia and Elijah are definitely going to be models. I have so much to prepare for this retreat, and can not believe that after 8 months of planning the time has arrived. For those who don’t know, Barb Uil (Jinky Art) is my very favorite photographer in the world. She is  coming all the way from Australia for two amazing workshops here in Boulder, at my house+community house no less! Her photography is so whimsical and soft and beautiful and speaks to the heart of childhood. Every photograph is a work of art. I love being able to make a living as a photographer, and realize that a lot of that is because I can take really great portraits that capture the joy and love in a family, but her work is this amazing, timeless, breathtaking art, and I want to be able to create with the same tenacity and energy that she does. So watch out-I am going to be a new photographer after this week. I will post LOTS and LOTS of photos as we go along, too!

Now off to finalize catering, models, props, locations, etc….

xoxo stacey

Anyways, this was Adam’s 35th birthday party. 35! We met when I was 21. We are getting so old (well me, I am a mere 31, so there). He is looking GOOD though. Gotta get a good pic of his newly finished tattoo (my bday present to him, along with a weeklong meditation retreat).

Off to Breckenridge for the weekend for a family only-no shooting at all-feeling free and being well kinda weekend.

Because my boys love those babies I love these two photos, for sure. Adam *finally* told me the other day that he “wasn’t against having another baby if the circumstances were right.” Told ya. It would just take some time for him to come around. I have been saying this forever! Glad the day came. Coming up with new baby names as I write….

Super wonderful sales manager Reg, with her new baby. Love those baby feet! So sorry we have to represent the competitor’s baby sling. What’s up with that Reg?

And then it turned windy. We were being blown all around-crazy Boulder wind.Eli’s face ROCKS. (fyi-my Elijah is in blue here-Eli is the one rocking the yoda extreme jedi scream there.

ps. if you know me well, then you are not wondering why my husband’s 35th birthday party blog post is all about kids and babies. There were indeed a lot of adults there, but they are just not that cute.

xoxo stacey

As a side note, that strange contraption Elijah is carrying around his shoulder was invented by him. He loves to create things. It is a home for his Zhu Zhu pets, who just had to come camping with us. If you don’t know what Zhu Zhu pets are, don’t worry, you are not missing anything. Elijah and Adam are in the middle of creating an AWESOME aquaponics system right now. Elijah won’t stop talking about it. He watched two hours worth of youtube videos on instructions for aquaponics systems.  I can’t even get through one 2 minute one. He is destined to be an engineer. He always talks about the solar powered airplane he is going to invent when he grows up.

I will explain about what the aquaponics system is later when I have some good photos.

xoxo stacey