I haven't posted in a long time…
well I have been busy! Photos, Photos, Photos, Taxes, Photos, Photos, planning Simon's Birthday, Photos Photos etc. January 31st is the deadline for remitting excise taxes so I had to catch up on entering all that stuff into quickbooks. Procrastination is not one of my finer qualities. With that behind me I can get back to the fun stuff.
Here are some adorable brothers. 3 weeks old.

After working with twins photographing single babies seems like a breeze! With twins there are never enough hands!

More coming soon. Including some pics of the Birthday boy.

My fellow photographer Jewels Harrell drove down from Bellingham last Weekend and we had a little fun with a maternity session. It’s so great to work with someone who is up for anything and will go along with your crazy ideas. WARNING – lots of skin (Grandma – don’t read any further!)

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Here is my beautiful friend Cheryl, pregnant with her second child.

I bet you can’t guess what the baby’s name is!

        My friend Emily gave birth to this beautiful baby boy at 6:25 am Tuesday morning. The plan was that I would photograph this birth, however, things didn't go as planed and baby Harris decided to make his entrance into the world before I could get there to catch it on film.

            8lbs 6oz, 22 inches long, and some killer dark hair!

            welcomed by Emily, Clay and big sister Evelyne

        Harris was born at the Puget Sound Birth Center in the very same room where Simon was born almost a year ago. It was a little odd to be back there but awesome to be a part of this very intimate moment. (And yes, Jennifer they have a REAL bed at the Birth Center – in my mind a prerequisite for any labor and delivery room). In the last photo Harris is having his newborn exam. Which is done right on the bed – baby never leaves mom, another big plus in my book.

Twin sisters – two very different personalities already at 4 weeks old. I had big plans for posing these two together – they had a very different idea about how the shoot should go.

They tag teamed each other. One would stay vigilantly awake while the
other slept and then reverse! I did end up with some beautiful shots
though – It’s hard not to with babies as beautiful as these.

I’ve got your back sister!

Say tuned more mommies and babies coming soon…

I broke out my speedlight yesterday and started practicing with it. I have something big in the works for which I may need it and I haven’t used it in awhile and the last time I tried it wasn’t always firing. Turns out there was a ton of crud in the hot shoe and once I cleaned that out it worked fine. So I shot some photos of Simon in the bath. Then I made this story board.

I found this cool software called screencap it allows you to make a video of what you are doing on your computer. I downloaded the trial and made the following tutorial on how to make the above story board. This is my first time doing this so you will have to excuse my novice attempt. I just used the microphone in my laptop – not an external one consequently you pick up a lot of background noise with the fan – but you can still hear me. next time I will try an external mic. Also this is the demo version of the software so you see a little moving watermark. It’s also really low quality so I am not sure it this will really help a whole lot because it is kind of hard to see which tool I am using. but mainly its the Move too (arrow) and the text tool.

Here is the video

making a story board tutorial from Emily Weaver Brown on Vimeo.

These are the steps that I took

1) open up the photos and elements that you are going to use
2) open a new document (in this case 10×20 story board)
3) drag and drop photos onto new document use the command +T function to resize images. Position images as desired.
4) add new layer for blue lines
5) edit > stroke  to add lines (these were done at 20px) color will be whatever color is in your foreground pallet.
6) add upper text – drag it into position
7) go to the layer with blue lines and erase back line where it runs through text.
8 Add text that will run along side (Splish Splash)
9) rotate text using command + T, move into position
10) drag on duck element and position
11) use the paint bucket to paint the background white
12) flatten layers

and here are some more photos of Simon

I also took a really cute video of him in the bath the night before – unfortunately it needs some censorship which I can’t do in imovie 6 without purchasing a plugin. I am considering instead just upgrading to imovie 9 but I can’t tell if it has a blur effect either. If someone has imoive 9 and knows wether or not it can censor things will you let me know?

he has been taking a few steps for a little over a week now but every time I get the camera out he refuses to do it. yesterday I set it up on the tri-pod and caught this.

Simon, just starting to take a few steps from Emily Weaver Brown on Vimeo.

My friend Jennifer gave birth to this beautiful baby girl 6 days ago. Isn’t she gorgeous?
Eliza was welcomed into the world by her two older sisters who just adore her.

You may recognize Hannah and Clara from the XX picture we took a few months back.

I got this one a little over a month ago – it's much harder to find willing models. But this little guy was an absolute doll and let me do a bunch of fun poses with him.

and yes, the scale has been photo shopped to show his true birth weight.   

I get asked all the time about how to get  babies asleep and into such poses. There are several tricks.

1) two words – Milk Coma. You feed and feed and feed and feed the baby until they absolutely they cannot stand any more. They will be drunk on milk and submit to being handled. I am very Pro breast feeding (I only breast feed my son) but the truth is that it is much easier to induce a milk coma with formula. I think because it is digested so much more slowly. The little guy above – 100% breast fed so it can be done it just takes longer. I also feel bad for the moms because I remember how sore my nipples were.

2) The baby needs to be less than 10 days old. After about 10 days
they get used to being outside of the womb, they stretch out, and they
start to develop their own sleep habits. Usually older babies will not submit to being curled up in baskets or handled as above.

3) The room needs to be very warm, probably close to 80 or 85 degrees. Newborns like to have very full tummies, and they like to be warm.

I almost forgot to add. If you are interested in scheduleing a newborn session please please contact me while you are still pregnant so that I can get you on my schedule. We will finalize the date and time once your little one arrives.