Jack is the son of my friend Erika, he was born 6 weeks early and I photographed him at 27 days old. As you will see in the video he is still tiny. Erika was gracious enough to let me video tape part of the session and I have included the video of getting the above shot at the bottom of this post.
Achieving those cute curled up poses with newborns takes a lot of patience! The first part of the video starts out at normal speed but when I start molding him into position I sped up tape so that you don’t have to watch the full 2 hours session. The speed makes it look as though I am jerking him around a bit which makes me a little nervous to share it but let me assure you – I am very gentle with babies, the tape is just at 3Xs normal speed. Also note that the tape ran out at the end and I didn’t show moving the light to camera right. As you will note the final image shown is shot in the same set up but with the light camera right.
Most of the session is getting the baby to sleep. Once the baby is in a deep sleep they will usually let me move them around and position them as Jack does. The Assistant helping my hold my blanket is my friend and fellow photographer Lauren Hartman. Lauren is an amazing macro photographer and she brought her 105 macro lens to the session and we had some fun getting some close ups of Jack.
If you find these videos useful or just interesting please let me know and I will try to continue to make them.
Thank you Jack, Erika, big sister Audry, and Lauren for a fun session!
I know everyone loves the antique produce scale but it makes me nervous every time I get it out. There are just so many moving parts to it and the logistics to a shot like this are quite difficult. Luckily little Ellianah was the perfect model and took right to the pose. And what a cutie! I could photograph babies this easy all day long.
And since someone always ask, I got the scale off ebay (of course). Isn’t that were all antique treasures are procured?
I have been meaning to do a post about this recipe for some time. My friend Erik loaned me her cook book – “The Eat-Clean Diet for Family & Kids” by Tosca Reno. It has a lot of great kid friendly standards made a lot more healthy. This chicken nugget recipe is one of our favorites. Ever notice how impossible it is to find baked, whole grain, organic chicken nuggets? It’s because they don’t exist. The closest I have come is Earth’s Best but they are expensive and not organic. So I made up a ton of these and put them in the freezer. Now when we need a quick lunch I just bake them for 10 minuets.
looks good right…. you know what’s in the breading? Oat bean, wheat germ, flax seed, and ground almonds, along with a little garlic powder and salt. They taste amazing and if you have older kids you could easily make them as chicken fingers instead of nuggets – or even use the same breading combo to make fish sticks. So I made up this batch and was trying to take some photos and this is what happened….
The little twerp just came out of no where and the next thing I know his little chunky hand is in my photo!
Like all toddlers he is really into dipping his food…
mumm good! Here is the recipe. Note: I have edited the recipe to make more breading which I found necessary to coat the chicken.
Crispy Chicken Bites
3 boneless, skinless chicken breast
1/2 cup / 120 ml Oat bran
1/2 cup / 120 ml wheat germ
2 Tbsp / 30 ml coarsely ground flax seed
1/2 cup / 120 ml coarsely ground almonds
1 tsp / 5 ml sea salt
1 tsp / white pepper
Pinch Garlic Powder
1/2 cup 120 ml water or low-sodium chicken stock
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
cooking spray
Preparation
1. preheat oven to 400*F/205*C. Prepare baking sheet by lining with parchment paper or coating lightly with cooking spray.
2. cut the chicken breast into nugget-sized pieces” about 1 1/2 inches square. Set aside.
3. combine all dry ingredients in a large container with a tightly fitting lid. Shake well. This is your coating mixture. Combine water and egg in a medium bowl. Dip each chicken piece in the water/egg-white mixture and then place in the coating mixture. Make sure each piece is well coated. Place on the backing sheet. When all of your chicken has been coated and your backing sheet is full, place in oven and bake for 10 – 15 minutes or until golden.
Note: if you wish to make a large batch to freeze bake only for 9-10 minuets and let cool completely before freezing in a ziplock bag. To finish spread out desired number of nuggets on a baking sheet and bake at 400* for 10 minuets.
The sauce is just a honey mustard sauce. To make combine 1 1/2 tsp/ 7.5 ml honey with 1 tbsp/ 15 ml Dijon mustard.
If you try this recipe leave me a comment and let me know!
It’s that time of year again where you start to see quite a few families on my blog. These guys are old favorites. It’s always cool to see how much the little ones have grown up over the years.
We are having a wonderfully warm fall here, it’s still practically summer so I am enjoying working outdoors. Especially when it’s with little cuties like these guys!
This is what I was photographing last night/this morning. The beautiful birth of Lilliana, at the Puget Sound Birth Center. Lilliana arrived this morning at 1:10am, she was greeted by a cheering crowd of extended family.
Just a few hours old being measured and weighed.
She was very alert but very calm during her newborn exam and I was able to get some great open eye shots.
one proud mommy – after a lot of work.
What can I say, the birth of a baby is a beautiful and miraculous thing. Lilliana is surrounded by so much support and love she is truly a blessing.
You are a beautiful little girl and I know that you are well loved because you came to your session with a plethora of hand knitted things. Beautiful blankets and hats that were knit especially for you. Years from now when your mother teaches you to knit you will begin to realize the time and dedication that gifts like these entail. For now, I am just sorry that we had to send one of them home sopping wet in a grocery sack, at least you only pooed on your mommy and not on your beautiful blanket. Sleep well tonight and give you parents a break.
So I know some people think that the whole vegan/vegetarian crayon thing is “taking it a little far” (ahem, Myles). But what can I say – I am grossed out by the thought of my son sucking on rendered pet parts. Yes, he still does chew on the crayons and suck on them even though I constantly ask him to take them out of his mouth. If you missed my previous post about learning that crayons contain stearic acid, which is made from tallow, which comes from: pigs, cows, dogs and cats (and I am totally not making up the dog and cat part) You can read it here. Anyway it turns out that finding vegan or vegetarian crayons is actually pretty hard because nobody labels them as such, and if you google it you basically come up empty handed. So that is why I am writing this post. In case there are any other inquiring minds that want to know if vegan crayons or even vegetarian crayons exist. They do!
Simon LOVES LOVES LOVES to color and right now he talks about “colors” non stop. Especially purple and orange (he doesn’t always keep them straight though).
I looked through lots of ingredients list and in the end wrote quite a few companies. In the end I found 2 sets of crayons that are stearic acid free: the Doug and Melissa Triangular Crayons (both jumbo and regular versions) and the German Stockmar Beeswax Crayons. Finding ingredient information of the Stockmar crayons proved to be the most difficult because they are made by a German company Stockmar. Major props to Betsy and Sonya from A Toy Garden who went out of their way to find out the answers to my questions and even wrote their German distributor. If you want to purchase a set (or any high quality natural toy) I highly recommend their store. They have excellent customer service and very unique products.
The Doug and Melissa crayons are made from plastic and have a bit different look and feel then your standard crayola. They actually color a bit more like a colored pencil than the traditional waxy crayon. They are very smooth and I love that they are triangular because 1) they don’t roll away and 2) they are much much easier for chubby little toddler hands to hold. The Doug and Melissa crayons are the only crayon that I could find that are 100% vegan, and yes, I got an email back from Melissa & Doug, Inc. Customer Service stating that “Yes, all of our crayons and Tallow and animal product free.” They are slightly more expensive than your typical box of crayola but they are still really affordable. Thank you Amy for suggesting them.
The Stockmar crayons are something entirely different. They are made from beeswax but no other animal by products. The color is phenomenal. I have actually never seen a crayon color this vivid. They color that comes out of them is almost closer to art pastels. You barely have to apply pressure while drawing and the brightest colors emerge. I would call them more of an “artist” crayon and boy are they nice! Thanks to Renee for suggesting them. They are also super thick and as an added bonus you can also get them as a set of sticks or rubbing bricks. I opted for the set that contains both but you can buy either the sticks or blocks in sets up to 16. These guys hold up to the reputation of all things German being high quality. They are a little more spendy but definitely worth the cost.
This made me chuckle – do you think the German word for crayon is Wachsmalblocke? Does that translate literally to “small wax block”?
So I hope that helps out anyone else who is looking for vegan or vegetarian crayons or just a set of high quality crayons. And thanks to everyone who made suggestions on where to find them. Simon is happily coloring away in fact this morning he colored on the toilet seat!
And before I forget to share this super cute video here is Simon telling all about the colors. He basically learned his colors just by coloring and I would tell him the color of the marker/crayon. Pretty soon he was pointing out purple everywhere. He still has a hard time with red, yellow, and brown but I think he is doing pretty good. Isn’t it funny though how much this kid loves purple?
Remember baby Alex who was born at 32 weeks gestation?(You can view his birth slide show here.) Well this is him now. All plumped up at 8 weeks old. Alex’s mom had the wonderful idea to have him photographed on his due date so here he his on September 10th, 2009 – the date he should have been born. He has more than doubled his birth weight and is now over 8 lbs. It makes me so happy to see him so healthy and chunky. The pose above was also mom’s idea and I love it! Congrats Laurie and Kunga for making it through the hardest part with a preemie – I hope it’s smoothing sailing from now on.
A long time ago I used to round the corners on all the pictures that I posted on my blog. I created a photoshop action to simplify the process and I shared that action online with my photographer friends. It worked great on my computer but a lot of people had problems with it – and they emailed me about it (constantly). So I remade the action and simplified it . However, the original action set contained an option to also draw a black line around the image. The remade action did not have that option, so now I get emails about that. So I have remade the action and I am introducing it here for a 3rd time (3rd times a charm right?). This time I have had it tested and I know it works!
This action will round the corners on pre-cropped images at the following crop ratios 5×7, 8×10, and 8×12. Please note that you need to crop your image to the desired ratio at 300 dpi BEFORE you run the action. Otherwise you image may end up a little squished or stretched out. Also included is a rounded corner action that will add a black line around your image first. So you will end up with an image that looks like this.
If you don’t want to use the image on a white background you can simply run the action, go into the history and back up 3 steps and select a background color of your choice.
This action is supported on the following formats:
PSE 6, PSE 7, PSCS2, PSCS3, PSCS4
This was just a fun shot taken at the end of a family session out on Whidbey island last week. I think it may be my favorite shot from the shoot and it was totaly spontanious. – Love it when that happens.
Just a few hours old being measured and weighed.
She was very alert but very calm during her newborn exam and I was able to get some great open eye shots.
