I am so excited to be sharing the Rodriguez family’s Downtown Phoenix family photos! Allison is a wedding florist — one of the best in the biz – she owns Array Designs. You may recognize her work; she did all the florals for The BGP Motherhood Event this year! And they were absolutely stunning!
So, it was nice to be able to meet the rest of her sweet family at their session! Allison and Justin have two of the sweetest little boys – Ollie, who is 3 years old, and such a sweetheart and Theo who is only 14 months old. Both such happy kiddos!
The key to winning at family sessions? Gamify Everything.
Ollie was so playful! Everything was gamified at their session — so much so that it felt more like a playdate than it did ‘work’! At the beginning of the session, he was promised a paper airplane if he smiled for a picture. And he did great! Allison dug up an old church craft paper in the bottom of her diaper bag, and Caitee and Oliver sat on the steps making a paper airplane, while we took other photos on the side. Caitee comes with me to all my sessions and has lots of different jobs, but this one — OPAF: The Official Paper Airplane Folder — might have just been her most crucial job yet. That airplane quickly became the highlight of the session and worked like a charm, for getting both both of them to look at the camera!
Besides throwing paper airplanes, the next best game became the squeeze apple sauce pop & toss! It was a crowd fave with the boys and made everyone laugh! The boys would take a sip, and Dad would toss it out of the picture … It starts so romantic with a champaign pop at your wedding and then 8 years later it becomes a squeeze apple sauce pop! Honestly, not sure which one was more exciting!
And Theo, was just the cutesiest! Maybe one of the happiest boys you’ll meet and he has THE BEST smile in the world! He was so content to crawl around and explore, happy to be held, and loved watching everything Ollie was doing! It was too cute watching the boys play, and watching Ollie try to make Theo laugh … everything from acting like a monkey to blowing bubbles! And Theo would throw his head back and laugh so hard!
One of my favorite things about family sessions, especially sessions with such little ones is capturing their personality and who they are in this season… whether that be loud and giggly, or more quiet and reserved, it’s special. And it’s so sweet to have that preserved in photos!
We took their family photos in Downtown Phoenix at the Arizona Science Center and then later in their session we walked over to Heritage Square. It’s such a fun place for family photos, you can get the best of both worlds. It was a perfect mix of natural backdrops while also being able to capture some really cool editorial photos there. And I can’t believe how many good ones we captured in each spot!
Introducing the Behind the Blog Series
AND … I’m so excited to be rolling out for the first time, the ‘Behind the Blog’ Video Series! Where I’m taking you behind the scenes with me at my sessions! A peek into it all — tight timelines, fussing babies, energic kiddos, hunting for location spots, the laughs, and the good moments — so you can see the reality behind those dreamy, ‘effortless’ blog images.
Here’s the thing, every session comes with it’s own unique set of fresh challenges, which is part of the fun, and so I would love to start to give you a peek into how we work through those to capture these beautiful photos!
I can’t think of a better way to kick off this series than with the Rodriguez family’s Downtown Phoenix family photos!!
So here’s the scoop, these are the two potential challenges that I went into the session expecting:
- Two little, little boys – We’ve never met before, so it could have gone just about any way! The first big challenge is just seeing if they will warm up to me. The second challenge with that is not knowing what to expect with Ollie’s (3 yrs.) personality … will he be energetic and playful? Shy? In the mood to take pictures? And then quickly evaluating and setting the game plan for the session based on what he is up to participating in. And then there’s little Theo (14 months), how will he be feeling, did he get a nap? Fussy? Happy? Sleepy? Easy Going?
- Shooting the heart of Downtown Phoenix during rush hour– Which can A) be distracting for littles B) I wanted to showcase as much of the location as possible without showing anyone else in the background …
Watch how it all went here …
And then enjoy scrolling through Rodriguez family’s Downtown Phoenix family photos! They were an absolute joy to work with and one of the sweetest families! I just love how you can see all their sweet relationships in these photos!
