A Bit of Historic South: Family Portrait Session, Roswell GA

We are relatively new to the South, so my husband and I have been playing tourist and soaking up the culture lately. Roswell has some real treasures, and Barrington Hall is one of them. After scouting out this and a few other locations, we knew Barrington Hall would be the perfect location for this family, and we were so pleased when we got permission to shoot there. My favorite part of the shoot was asking each of the children (except the baby of course) to pick a spot to have their portrait taken. We got some fun character shots that way, and the photos turned out gorgeous. The morning light was so beautiful, I had a hard time turning more than a few of them into black and white. I love the color!

Jacob and I have been busy parents and photographers these past few weeks: location scouting, photographing families, editing photos, making a video for our Great Strides walk, and updating our group on Facebook. (Join the Butler Family Photography group on Facebook if you haven't yet!) I should be tired out, but I'm just exhilarated with the quality of work we've been able to do. I hope you'll agree!

Great Strides 2009

Next month, our family is walking in the Great Strides 5K to help raise funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Jacob and I put together this video with some of the most poignant photos from our experiences as CF parents. (I've included some of my favorites in this post and some that didn't make the cut.) You can also view a better quality version of the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf-vPSIZ3Rc.

We hope our story touches you and you can join us by donating or walking on May 16th. For more information, go to either of our Great Strides home pages: http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/marchetbutler or http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/jacobbutler5930. Feel free to share our video on Facebook, MySpace, blog, email or other social networking tool. The more people that know about CF, the better it will be for our son and 60,000 others like him.

Thanks to family and friends who took additional photos for the video including Tammy Clark, Teresa Tronier, Steve Haynes, and Warren Lucas. The amazing music is courtesy of Josh Woodward, who shares his work under a Creative Commons License at JoshWoodward.com.

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On Location: Family Photo Session

I had such a great time with this family in part because the location is such an adventure. There are hills to climb, sticks to drag in the dirt, rocks to throw in the creek and lots of interesting spots to shoot in. Dad was especially glad they weren't stuck in a little studio. Mom had some great ideas for poses and backgrounds, and I have to give the kids' uncle a huge thank you. He was great jumping in and out of family shots and wielding a puppet to coax smiles out of the children. Good job!

I'm especially excited to see what photos will make it into mom's blogging, 3 Cute Kids or Deep South Moms. Her writing is funny and honest and totally disarming. I've been a fan since I shot for their extended family last year, so I wanted to make sure to get a gorgeous head shot of her for a bio or profile photo. After you're done enjoying the photos, head over to 3 Cute Kids and read one of my favorite posts: You Can Choose. It's a lot of laughs!

Afternoon at the Park: Grandson and Grandma session

Wills Park is a perfect place to shoot for an active 3-year-old, and my client and her grandson look fabulous in the high-contrast afternoon light. I love all the little moments: the heads together in conversation, the glance backward before going down the slide, the kiss of obvious devotion, and the contemplative look against the wooden playground rails.

Is that SpongeBob on a stick? Yes, it's true. An ice cream treat complete with gumball eyes made the perfect end to our shoot and the perfect subject for a spot color treatment. And that was totally unplanned! The ice cream truck just showed up near the end of our session. Thanks, ice cream man! Oh yes, and thanks to my client who anticipated the spot color and brought the Tonka truck for her grandson to play and sit in. So great!

Spring! (My camera loves you, but my nose . . . not so much.)

While I've been location scouting these past two weeks, I've stopped to document our gorgeous season in Roswell and Alpharetta, something I did last fall with the autumn colors. While I love spring for the beauty of blossoming bushes and trees, some days I struggle with the pollen! A-choo! Fortunately, my camera has no such complaints.