It felt like I was doing an Engagement Session but this couple was actually nearing the completion of one full year of marraige! They were adorable and oh so photogenic! You can tell from the giggling shots that these two are madly in love! I had the opportunity to catch some reunion shots at the airport when he came home for a two week R&R stint. Right at the crucial moment as he was about to come down the escalator I received the dreaded “CF Card Error”. The most horrible timing ever! I changed cards as fast as possible and grabbed a few photos after they had already said their first hello’s but I was so bummed not to have gotten their expressions upon seeing each other after almost a year!

A few days later we did a portrait session and captured some fun images of them in the snow as well as with their cutest dog ever. The puppy apparently was a gift from him to her when he first deployed! Awesome present!

The exciting news for both of them is that he should be home earlier in the year rather than later! I know they can’t wait.

…

(**Note:  The photos and other content of this publication do not imply any endorsement or recommendation by the Department of Defense.**)

A couple of new portrait books came in and I just had to share! They include a newborn studio session, an outdoor family portrait session and a Christmas session of my boys for their grandparent’s yearly gift.

I love portrait books! They contain so, so, many images from your entire session that I feel they are one of the best ways to capture all the great moments from a photoshoot.

No, they are not cheap!  But imagine all the custom work that goes into designing and tailoring each book to your specific family and photo session.  All books contain a minimum of 20 pages.  They typically include about 25 images.  Calculate the price of purchasing 25 edited images individually and you can begin to see the real value.

Each image is fully edited and additional processing goes into matching the colors and tones of mutlitple images on a page.  The design can be basic white with crisp and clean transitions or a more modern feel with current design elements.

My parents now have four books.  When I spoke with them on Christmas day they told me they pulled out all their old books and were comparing and contrasting the changes in the kids to the new book they just recieved.  It made me laugh because I couldn’t imagine that I had actually remembered to give them books for the past four years straight!

Portrait books come in a variety of shapes and sizes.  My favorite is actually the 8×8 which is small enough to carry in your purse but big enough to have a panoramic print or two traversing the 8×16 inch full spread!  All of the books that I print now for our Grandparents are of the 8×8 inch variety.  It seems to be the universal favorite for layout and portability without losing the size of the image!

As a new product for 2010, I am also including mini-books.  They are approximately 3.5×5 or 5×5 inches and look similar to accordian cards but with an attached hard cover on both the front and back.  Because of their small size, the products only contain about 10 images and come in quantities of three.  More details on the mini-books with sample photos coming soon!

I met this baby girl at a wedding recently and had the opportunity to capture her one year portraits as well. The title says it all. She has the best cheeks ever! Such a cutie and a great sport as long as there was “Pirate Booty” — a fun kids snack– hidden in strategic locations.

My favorite shot is the one of her looking studious reading the book she brought along to play with.

Now that it’s colder outside, those family portraits with small children are starting to get pushed back into the studio.  I recently had the opportunity to photograph another family session for Operation Love Reunited during an all too short R&R break for a deployed soldier and his adorable family.

The studio works great for tiny tots and we were able to get some of the whole family as well as some individual ones of their baby boy.  It was hovering around 5 or 10 degrees outside but we attempted a quick jaunt out back and got a tiny handful of  ”Alaska” shots as well before everyone froze!

The idea behind OpLove is to send a small portrait book of a family session to the soldier while deployed so they’ll have a nice token from their family back home.  Luckily, the soldier’s from the last two OpLove sessions I’ve done will be home to see their families again in just a few months!  There should be a lot of great homecomings coming up in the new year for many troops in Alaska! Yay!

(**Note: The photos and other content of this publication do not imply any endorsement or recommendation by the Department of Defense.**)

For several years we’ve been fortunate enough to spend Thanksgiving with Dave’s Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim.  An added bonus is that Uncle Jim’s neice and her family also spend Thanksgiving there and our boys love having their kids to play with.  Our first trip up as a family was when Solomon was 2 months old.  We’ve made it several years since and we were anxiously waiting to see everyone again after spending last Thanksgiving in the balmy tropics known as Alabama.

Mary & Jim have a cabin several hours north and have added a bunk house and are now working on a stellar hangar and workshed that I neglected to grab a photo of.  It’s a mighty fine piece of woodwork!

The main house is a circular cabin and is heated by a wood stove downstairs which keeps the whole house toasty and warm — a huge bonus because many Thanksgivings it is barely above zero degrees outside.  This year, however, we had a heat wave. The kids were able to sled and sled and sled some more due to a warm wind which brought us up to about 25 degrees.  Woo-hoo!

Did I mention the food?  Mary makes just about everything from scratch and there were some divine bread rolls that I am still drooling over (butter makes the world go round, right!)  On our last night there we always get to experience the massive undertaking of making lefse, a kind of nordic bread that I know nothing about.  It requires a full team effort, though, and these guys have obviously been doing it for years and have all the kinks worked out.  The kids even helped rolling and carrying and flipping this year.  It was a blast.

Can’t wait to see what happens next year!

To see the slideshow go here:  A Far North Thanksgiving