May was full of end of school milestones and parties and the start of summer. I'm so glad I started this 1 second everyday project - it's so fun to sum up the months this way!
FROM THE ARCHIVES - BROTHER AND SISTER SESSION IN DOWNTOWN SACRAMENTO
In my quest to get all my previous sessions posted, here's another gem from last year. I've photographed this brother and sister duo before, during a family session with their mom and dad. This time we squeezed in a mini session in Downtown Sacramento between their activities and the crazy rain that kept popping up.
This first image might be one of my most favorites ever. They look like they are in Europe somewhere. They actually didn't know I was shooting yet and so this casual, relaxed image is them just waiting for me to get my camera ready (or so they thought!)
Want a session of your own? Contact me and let's see what we can dream up.
MODELING HEADSHOT SESSION: OLIVIA
Olivia came to me for some headshots for her modeling portfolio. We met in downtown Sacramento early in the morning to avoid the predicted hot temperatures for the afternoon, but it was quite hot already. This young lady was a total pro though. Heat? An audience of brunchgoers watching us shoot? No problem. All in a day's work for her. I, on the other hand, was a sweaty mess. Another reason I stay behind the camera!
Olivia couldn't be a more lovely girl. I can't wait to see what's in store for her in the future!
30 SECONDS OF APRIL
April, you went by in a flash...
March in 31 seconds
I am determined to do a better job of memory keeping this year. I want to capture more everyday moments and I want a cool yet easy way to look back on the year. I found it in 1 Second Everyday. Have you heard of it? It's an app where you take a snippet of video every day and the app stitches it into a cool little video. It's so easy and once you see your life put together in one second bits, it's addictive. Here's March in my world:
I think I'll post each month here. It will be so cool to see the whole year boiled down to 365 seconds at the end of this project!
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
1. Because time is flying by
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling like time seems to pass more quickly every year. One minute I had a little baby boy and now suddenly he’s getting ready to graduate from high school. I just wish I could stop time! I can’t stop it, but moments can be frozen with photography. I can see him with his cute little blond curls and knuckle dimples anytime even though now he’s 6’2”. Once you have these images you can revisit your family at these stages again and again. Your children will never be this young again. Your family will never be exactly the way they are today. The time to capture now is now.
People tell me they’re too busy to book a session. They want to wait until things slow down a bit. Newsflash – life doesn’t get less busy. You may be knee deep in diaper changes and feedings now, but later it’ll be carpools, homework and soccer practices. The stages change, but life is always going to be full. We can always find time for things that are important to us; and this should be one of them. Your future self thanks you.
2. Because you need to be in photos, too
In so many cases, one parent is the family photographer – diligently capturing those soccer games and birthday parties – but as a result not in any photographs. Your children want photographs of you and with you, and you owe it to them to do that.
3. Because your family doesn’t care what you look like
The excuse I hear the most for not booking a session is, “I want to lose weight before I get photos taken.” Well. I have to say that when I look back at photos of my mom and me, or old photos of my long gone relatives, never once have I thought to myself, “Boy, she should have waited to take this photo until she was thinner.” And neither will your children. The fact is, whatever your weight is right now is the way your family has been seeing you anyway – they love you and will want to remember you just as you are. (Besides, do you think if there are no photos of the weight then it didn't happen? Come. On.)
If you don’t want to capture yourself as you currently look in photos, what are your actions teaching your children? Are you saying that you are only worthy of remembering if you meet some sort of ideal criteria? We are all works in progress, and the fact that we are here on the planet and have people we love and love us is reason enough to get in front of the lens. And, not that I don’t have confidence in your weight loss goals, but what if you never lose that weight? You’ll live out your life with no photos of you for your family to cherish one you’re gone. So, listen…get photos taken now. And next year. And the year after that. Sometimes you might be heavier. Sometimes you might be thinner. Your family doesn’t care what you look like. They love you the way you love them. And they deserve to see that love in photographs.
4. Because you just never know
Hopefully you’ll have many, many years of family memories ahead of you. But none of us knows that for sure. And if something were to happen to you or one of your family members, the only thing people have to turn to to remember are the photos.
5. Because this is a great experience in and of itself (really!)
People (most often dads) dread the shoot as something that is going to be awkward and tedious. Maybe they’re scarred from their own family photo memories (in my house we got dressed up in scratchy clothes and trooped down to the local Olan Mills to pose stiffly in front of the fake backdrops and rest our hands on those weird carpeted little props – remember those?) This scene couldn’t be farther from a Christie Spencer Photography shoot! My everyday magic sessions consist of a family doing something fun together – be it making cookies and playing tickle fight on the couch to heading out into a field and jumping off logs and picking wildflowers. This concentrated time just being a family and paying 100% attention to one another doesn’t happen very often in our busy, multitasking lives. We are often rushing from one thing to another, maybe checking our phones as we interact with our kids. More than once it’s been reported back to me that kids say the shoot was the “best day ever” and I think it’s because the kids just really love that concentrated quality time with their parents.
I'd love to capture these memories for you. Let's talk and plan a shoot for your family.
MAGIC HOUR
I have all kinds of sessions that I've never shared here so I'm planning to roll them out and relive them all again!
This family's session was especially fun because this is a repeat family. It's always such an honor to get to capture families through the years. I love seeing how big the kids have gotten and how the family dynamic changes as the kids get older. We booked the session for my favorite time to shoot: magic hour – that hour right before sunset when the light is golden and beautiful.
The love they have for one another is so apparent. This first image is my favorite kind of family portrait – I love the way Dad and his daughter are embracing, the way Mom is simultaneously adjusting her daughter's clothes and enjoying her son's goofiness, the golden light... it's all magic.
Sometimes people tell me they don't think their family is interesting enough for photos. I promise – your family just loving each other and being themselves will be plenty interesting.
There was a lot of jumping and running and tickling and general fun to be had during our time together and the scenery of tall grass and large oaks was a beautiful backdrop for it all. After we were finished and walking back to the car this glorious magic hour light gave me this image with their long shadows behind them. This is why I never put my camera away even when we're done! You just never know when an image is going to appear.
If you're looking to capture images like this of your family, send me a message. I'd love to design a session that's just right for your family.
MODELING HEADSHOT SESSION
This guy needed new headshots for his portfolio at Cast Images and we had a blast roaming around Midtown getting these portraits. Thanks for a fun afternoon, bud!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I know that somehow it's already the middle of February (whaaaat?), so the year may not feel so new anymore, but because my birthday is in February the year always starts here for me.
This photo sums up the year: crazy, fun and together. (BTW: you can't tell here but more than one child was on the verge of tears from being hungry and/or freezing in this photo. Way to pull it together to get the shot, kids!)
This year was FULL. Full of driving the kids to and from school in a city 30 minutes away, all four kids playing soccer in three different cities, school projects and their inevitable drama, driving lessons, filling out college applications, getting meals on the table and laundry folded (again and again and – again?) all while working an office job as well as doing photography sessions and Isis working a demanding job made for full days and weeks that just whizzed by.
This was also the year of The Great Sewer Backup of 2015. Getting the phone call at work that, "Um, there seems to be a leak? In the bathroom?" turned into sewage flooding our downstairs bathroom/hallway/kitchen and needing to remove the bottom three feet of drywall of our walls and take out all the flooring in the entire downstairs...the flooring we had just put in exactly a year prior. The fridge was in the dining room and we would go on a scavenger hunt to find what box held the kitchen items on a nightly basis. We added a couple of workmen to our family for a few weeks there. I think we saw them more than our kids! Even though things were topsy turvy there for a while, everyone had the best attitude. Our life is crazy, but it is great.
Watching Isis and the girls break into spontaneous song and dance in our kitchen last night after our smoke detector started chirping, you'd never know this room used to be in a shambles. And even when it was, things were still pretty darn great. We are luckier than most people on the planet, and better still, we know it.
I'm excited to see what this year holds. We're excited for more home improvement projects. We have launched a year-long family service project that we are all super inspired by. And we have some things on the calendar to look forward to.
I know I've promised this to myself before, but I'm looking forward to keeping this space more up to date with what what's going on here at Christie Spencer Photography and at home, both for any readers who may have stuck around through this blog drought and for myself, as a record of this life that is speeding by. I have so many sessions from last year that never made the blog, as well as some other photography-related topics that have been on my mind. I also want this space to reflect more of the whole picture around here. I'm excited to share more from our regular life, from DIY house projects to organizing and memory keeping to other things I'm passionate about.
I hope you'll stay tuned! I think 2016 is going to be amazing. : )
my own at homecoming
I don't get my kids in front of my camera nearly enough. I was thrilled when they wanted me take photos of them on homecoming, although the logistics were quite a challenge! Their respective groups were meeting in different parts of town at the same time, so I had to do some quick shooting but I'm just glad I got to give each of them a little love!
This is her first homecoming. Luckily for me, this spot was right across the street from where she was getting ready. #thatworks The light was so beautiful, and so was she. She told me her friend's sister and sister's friend (are you following that?) were going to do her hair and makeup, and I didn't know what to expect - but wow!
Such fun hair!
Next we raced across town to capture him at his last homecoming. Sniff! Where does the time go?
This was their first homecoming, back when they were still just best friends. : )
DID YOU SEE THE SUPERMOON LUNAR ECLIPSE?
We were sitting outside enjoying a rare relaxing evening in the backyard when we wondered aloud when and where the moon would appear. The next thing we knew it rose directly in front of us, giving us front row seats from our lounge chairs! I scrambled to go find my camera and a tripod to try to get a few shots. I don't know much about photographing the moon, nor do I have the best equipment for that kind of thing, being a portrait photographer, but it was still super cool to see what I could capture. They are not NASA quality, but I enjoyed the process. : )
THE 5-MINUTE PHOTOSHOOT
She was already standing here, telling me a story when I realized I just had to capture her as she is, right now.
The hat. The outfit. The phone. The way she is sitting, all limbs, on those stairs. She just turned 10 but she seems so grown up. #tweenager There are lots more "likes" and "totallys" in the conversation these days. She's up to 49 juggles with the soccer ball. She just got a skateboard.
All it takes to capture this moment in time is five minutes and a conversation. I don't ask kids to smile or do anything other than be themselves. I'm so glad I took the time to get the camera out this morning!
as seen on bhg.com
Now that the post has gone live over at Better Homes & Gardens I can spill the beans on this super fun shoot! We had all the ingredients for a great party – six adorable kiddos, balloons, confetti, fun crafts, amazing treats, and ice cream served out of the most adorable pop up ice cream truck tent. Here are some of the images we got of this amazing shindig:
The party was styled by Melissa Johnson of Best Friends for Frosting fame and she outdid herself. We've been wanting to work together for a while now and I'm so glad we finally got to collaborate on a project.
These kids were so full of personality (and energy!) after all the sugar they ingested.
This party was so colorful and happy and the light was so pretty. I bet they're still finding bits of confetti around the house : )
The desserts by Sweet Cakes by Rebecca were all so beautiful – it almost seemed like a shame to eat them. Here is the lovely setup before the kids tore into them:
From crown making to cereal necklace crafts to cutting out custom ice cream cone wrappers, these kids had a ball.
To end the party, the kids went outside to have some ice cream. How cute is this ice cream truck tent?
It was so fun to be a part of this project. Check out the feature over at Better Homes & Gardens and Best Friends for Frosting for sources and more info!
glowing
Brittany and I work out together and we hatched a quick plan to do this shoot while on the exercise bike : ) I'm so glad we could squeeze this session in before her little guy made his arrival. We had so much fun finding pockets of pretty grasses and light. Her dress and necklace we just stunning and made her glow even more than usual. She was such a trooper about tromping through pricker bushes and up and down hills and dealing with the crazy wind. We captured some beautiful shots of this fleeting time and I'm so glad we could fit it in.
Brittany's mom joined us for the shoot and it was so fun to have her along. I loved this selfie moment:
We shot until we ran out of light – it was just too pretty to stop!
Can't wait to meet her little bundle of joy soon...
A NEW WALL GALLERY... IN JUST A FEW SECONDS
I love those shows on TV where a whole house is remodeled in just an hour. They cut to a commercial break and when the show comes back on they've demo'd a whole house. It's like magic!
I thought it'd be fun to show a little magic of a project I just finished - hanging a large gallery wall in an entry hall. While there are still the tasks of printing and installing the photos, I'm enjoying knowing the hardest part of this project is done!
Fields of gold
When I moved back to California from England in fourth grade, I remember the cover of my history textbook had a photo showing "the golden hills of California" on it and that photo looked just like the hills surrounding my neighborhood. I thought those hills, dotted with oak trees and complemented by a cloudless blue sky were the prettiest things I'd ever seen, maybe because they looked so different from the gray skies and green landscapes I'd been surrounded by in England.
I still find this time of year when the grasses have turned golden to be so beautiful and am surprised to hear other people describe them as dead and brown. When the sun shines through the tall stalks, they shimmer and glow and create the most magical light.
See what I mean?
We were having quite the heatwave when this shoot was scheduled (a high of 106 degrees - ug!), so we made the decision to switch the shoot to the next morning to take advantage of cooler temperatures. Even so, we were still melting out there and were feeling for the triathletes who were competing just steps away from us. If we were this hot and sweaty from just picking a few flowers and walking through the fields, we could only imagine how they were feeling!
Family fun in the country
This was a super fun session with this family on their amazingly beautiful property. I knew it was going to be a great session when I walked in and their footwear was this cool!
This is the second time I've been lucky enough to photograph these boys. They have really grown up in the years since I've seen them...and they've added some pet swans to the family!
Last time I photographed just the boys, but this time I was thrilled to capture memories of the whole family. It's so important that parents and their kids and the love they share are captured to remember forever.
Having recently lost my stepmom to cancer, every photograph of her is so precious to us. What if something were to happen to you? Do your children have photographic reminders of how much you love them? How you look when you laugh? There is no better time than now to make sure. No one will care that you wanted to lose a few pounds or wanted to grow your hair out first – your loved ones will treasure every last image of you. I'm certain of it.
OK, I'm off my soapbox now. Enjoy some more fun images from this session : )
But really... if you haven't captured your family and what you look like now in the last year, it's really time! It's a fun way to spend time together and when you see the images of your family's love in photographs, you'll be so glad you did. Let's talk about your perfect family session!
and puppy makes five
I traveled to Washington state last week and photographed this adorable family. They just added their newest member, 10-week old Finnegan. Oh my gosh - if I'd brought my bigger camera bag, I just might have tried to smuggle him out of there with me.
As always, the weather here was beautiful (I swear these gloomy weather rumors are a ploy to keep the rest of the country from moving here. I have visited this area during every season of the year and had amazing weather every time. Coincidence? Hmmmm....) This family's yard is like a park and was so green and lush. Due to the drought in California, we had greenery like this for about a nanosecond this year.
I'm not sure who had more energy... the puppy or the cute little guy you see behind him!
There's so much love and energy in this family and I had such a great time capturing it for them.
If anyone else is interested in having me come to your area to photograph your family, just drop me a line!
what I'm editing today
Just a little sneak peek of the photos I'm editing today... This session could not have been more fun! Golden light, beautiful wildflowers, and a fantastic family sharing a magical evening together. We had some mosquitos try to dampen our fun but we were prepared with bug spray. I didn't think to spray any on my face though, and after the session I realized that anywhere my face wasn't covered by my camera was fair game for the attack. But that's OK – to capture these images, a forehead full of bug bites was completely worth it. Completely.
As you can see from these images, this time of year is pretty amazing for an outdoor session. Contact me about scheduling your own session while we still have this lush greenery!
workspace wednesday
Today's all about paperwork... what is in that pile, anyway? Time to sort, file, purge, make lists, and plan. All with good coffee steaming in the "Life is Good" mug, birds chirping and a gentle breeze coming in through the window. Going to light that "Be Amazing" candle and do this! Hope you have a great Wednesday as well!
