Are you doing family pictures?

Yes?

Okay.

Here’s my advice — whoever you choose for your photographer — BOOK the SESSION NOW.  Seriously.  If you have ideas of fall photos, holiday cards, your family with great colors outside — yeah.  You know what i’m going to say, right?

Limited.  Openings.

So…that being said — this family booked and we had a huge amount of fun running all over their house and yard and just PLAYING (cuz I LOVE to play!) and George (I maintain that “GEORGE” is the best boy’s name ever — just say it to yourself.  Right?  If I had thought of it then — my son TOTALLY would have been a GEORGE) kept me on my toes running ALL OVER.  OMG!  ::laughing::

And one small observation — if you made it down to the bottom of this post and didn’t get caught up in — HOW CUTE THESE CHILDREN ARE ::grin:: — I want you to see that you don’t always have to go to crazy locations for photographs – sometimes just playing in the yard makes the best place.  Right?

Megan is allll about options.  She brought a terrific array of choices and we ROCKED it out!

Thanks Megan!

Holidays are right around the corner and you’ve promised yourself you are going to start preparing for your cards and gifts with a little time to spare this year. But where are you supposed to find that kind of time?!? Well…Tammy Swales Photography has got a solution.

Holiday Family Mini-Sessions!!!

They are like sessions, only…mini-er! Which means less time out of your holiday preparations, less time to try to coordinate short attention spans and the same priceless photographs without any fuss at all!

For more information check out this link!

An absolute riot!!!

The Darlings were such an inspiring, close-knit family and a hands-down hilarious group. They along with their four furry friends had me laughing so hard I was almost crying the entire time I was shooting.

4 humans + 4 dogs officially = an incredibly fun family shoot!

And….and a great deal of teamwork to get everyone looking at the camera at once.

Thing is – I’ve learned this from Lulu – when you’re a dog the simplest things are sometimes the most thrilling things in the world…

GRASS!!!! OMG!!!! EVERYONE’S SITTING ON THE GRASS!!!!! OMG!!!!!

It’s so exciting.

But after much running around, calling, cooing, cajoling and otherwise convincing we finally got everyone to look…

Well…

…almost.

But this one began with a photograph. Not my photograph, and not just any photograph…THIS photograph:

The Stolkas celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year. FIFTY YEARS!!! HOW COOL IS THAT!?!? And their daughter contacted us for some family portraits of them with her and her sister while everyone was in town for the anniversary. And she knew she wanted to bring this photograph which of them on their wedding day. And I loved this idea!

When I shoot families, I think it is really important to make the shoot more than just images of people in a place. Family is history, it is love, it is the nitty-gritty and the laughter of every day, and I think that every family should incorporate something that is all about THEM into their shoot to really capture WHO they are. So I loved the wedding photo plan. Then we got talking and Helena said that one thing that her parents love to do together is bike…so we brought that into the shoot…

It was incredible to see the closeness between the Stolkas and their daughters…and the laughter!!!! This was more than a celebration of FIFTY (did I mention 50?) years of marriage, it was a celebration of family, of love and of those moments together that we can often take for granted in our busy lives. And we laughed SO much!

Happy Anniversary Stolkas! Here’s to many more years of family and fun!!!

So…back to work, but first, here’s a snippet of some of that fantastic-ness for you, and a taste of what we’ve been up to lately. August, here we come!!!!  And frankly, how can it be August already?!

Aww, heck…why not two snippets?!?!

All that said, I’ve had a MAD number of engagement shoots lately. What an amazing way to start off the summer!!! I am PSYCHED beyond belief to shoot every one of these weddings.  I am overwhelmed by how each of my couples “get” me and how I work..which is the MOST important thing in getting great photographs.

Sometimes crazy fun engagement shoots take a little extra maneuvering, and my couples really step up to the plate. Literally! Valerie had to do some serious pre-planning to get us into Frontier Field so she and Keith could incorporate their love of baseball into their engagement images. But what a great experience that was!!! And Jessica and Clark impressively managed to get their ENORMOUS (and gorgeous!) dog all the way up to my forth floor studio without event! Talk about hard core…

And Stephanie and Micah were right there when I started yelling  “AH! There! Light! Underpass! Run! Now! Go!”

And we NAILED it!!!!  We make a great team. ::grin::

I love my couples and I am SO excited for this summer.

The great thing is, it just so happens that this year I have A LOT of couples from New York. Some are getting married in the NYC/Long Island area. Some who live down there now are getting married in Rochester. And one couple is holding their wedding in an AWESOME old bank in downtown Albany!

Lots of NY couples means…lots of NY engagement shoots! WOOT WOOT!!!  It also means some very strategic planning and a good deal of heated negotiation with the weather man.  All of that has paid off, though, ’cause this last trip down was SUCH a success!  Allison and Gregg and Leslie and Brad were totally fantastic and, let me tell you, between the lot of us we have some ROCKIN’ scheduling skills. What better way to spend a gorgeous spring day than marathon-shooting two adorable, fabulous couples in Manhattan?!?!

There really isn’t any. I mean seriously. SO much fun!!!! Allison and Gregg, Leslie and Brad, you made my day.