Children heirloom vignette portraits have long been a southern tradition, but they are getting more popular everywhere around the country, and for good reason.

I loved having all these families visit me in a Ravenswood photography studio to take their holiday photos. A lot of these images make it to their Christmas cards and it makes me so happy to know my work creates joy and reaches many loved family members and friends across the United States.

For the third year in a row we hosted a children Holiday Photography Mini session at our favorite Chicago pediatric dentist office: Grins on Green Bay.

I love Montrose Harbor and Montrose Beach as a location for my summer family photography sessions. Here you get a mix of urban and natural settings , and if you are willing to walk a bit your images can have so much variety that it looks as if you went to different places to make it happen.

Registration is now open for my Beach Mini Session event!

Happening this August, 20 minutes with me gets you 15 images and lots of good memories. My Beach Minis are dynamic and playful, we run around, give lots of kisses and cuddles, jump in the water, and we get some adorable images. See for yourself!

Macro images are close-ups of small objects, usually taken at close distance from the subject and with a special Macro lens that can focus on very tiny details. In the case of newborns, Macro lenses allow photographers to get close and personal with: puckered lips, tiny nails, cheek dimples, skin flecks, sweet eyelashes, hairlines or swirls, nose bumps, profiles, body rolls, finger knuckles, digital prints, and those adorable tiny toes.

I am thrilled to introduce my boy B who joined our family in early May. He has already transformed our lives in the best possible way and we could not be more in love. He is perfect in every way, and as a mom photographer I am obsessively recording the first days of his life with my camera.

I wanted to write this post to share some differences in light quality and how it can impact a session. To be clear, it is not really the time of day that has an impact on your images, but rather the direction and quality of the light available that specific day, at that specific time of day. So, photographing on a sunny day at noon will yield a very different result to photographing during a cloudy day at noon.

Props during baby photography are important because they keep babies entertained and engaged, so that the resulting images are dynamic. They also serve as a point of reference to see how small our children are.

Last year I met a talented photographer who had just moved to the Chicago market, and was soon to take it up by storm. We started interacting and came up with an idea of taking photos for each other’s family that summer. 

Images are worth a thousand words, so there is not much for me to say other than that love shines through in these images from a recent Newborn In Home Session.

I wanted to try a new location on the North Suburbs of Chicago. After looking around, we settled on Ryerson Woods in Deerfield, IL. We picked this place because we were looking for a woodsy area that had nice Fall colors. 

Whenever I promote my special 15-minute petite sessions (Mother’s Day, Fall, and Holiday season) people who have not worked with me before often ask me if it is actually possible to get some good pictures in that period of time. Well… here is the answer! 15 minutes, one location, multiple backdrops, multiple posses, lots of laughter and play and multiple images to choose from. 

For this studio maternity session, we wanted simplicity in the image to showcase her pregnancy in all its splendor. Simple outfits, simple backgrounds. Just her, and different setups with my lighting equipment – and of course we had to sneak in some images with her husband and beautiful kids. 

The theme for my 2021 Holiday Mini Sessions was “Being Present” and the set was decorated with many gifts wrapped in white and decorated with beautiful ribbons. I wanted to keep the set minimal, with simple and neutral colors that allow families to either make their sessions formal or causal, depending on what they wanted to wear.

Thank You to all 87 families that trusted me this year and opened their homes, hearts, and families to a complete stranger allowing me a glimpse into your magical lives.

Newborn Photography Sessions can have some challenges: babies can be fuzzy, parents can be exhausted, house pets may be running around, diaper changes, feedings, and so on. One other thing that may impact an indoor photoshoot, even though you probably wouldn’t think about it, is the weather.

Every once in a while, I search for families interested in modeling for me in exchange for a few images. People have asked me why I do model calls, and so I thought I would write a short post about my top reasons.

Here are some photos of precious Vivian’s session for her first birthday. Her mom and I collaborated to find a location that had beautiful flowers, and to plan for the use of props like the cute party hat and vintage chair.

Here are some images from a recent session at one of my favorite locations for Chicago photography. I think it is impossible to ignore the magic of golden Summer evenings, sun-kissed skins, lush green tones, blooming prairie flowers, and images of the lake covered in sailboats. Oh! and being able to see babies’ chubby arms and legs is always a plus.