Friday, October 31, 2008

Cotton fields, Lousiana Bayou, Alligator and Two-Year Boy

So what does a two-year old boy, cotton fields, a Louisiana bayou and an alligator have in common...
A PORTRAIT SESSION AT FROGMORE:
This is Jonah checking out a cotton bole. It appears that he thinks it is quite interesting, but really he was not that impressed with cotton. He was much more impressed with the alligator that Randy (my husband...Jonah's new friend) kept telling Jonah about.
I asked Randy (cotton ginner) to find me a good cotton field for Jonah's Cotton Portrait Session. Between me being sick, rain, and Jonah's boo boo on his eye, this session had been re-scheduled several times...so the cotton field choices where getting limited. They limited to begin with due to Hurricane Gustav, but even more so since we were into the middle of harvesting season for the cotton.
At this point, we were telling Jonah just to look...smile...whatever we could get and Randy would take him to see the alligator that he had spotted in the bayou when he found this particular cotton field for us.
One of the many aspects that I love about photography and portrait sessions is that often the end results do not reveal to actual mood of the event....but the image that mommies, grandmothers, aunties and the like want to see of their little ones---the storybook (fairytale version). After all many of life's moment are tough and hard to deal with, but in the end when we look back at the momemts we remember the sweetness of the age and portraits seem to make them all the more sweeter.
So for just a little more background behind these images: Jonah was not in the mood for portrait at all. He did not like his overalls. He told us that his mommy takes his pictures...which she does quite often as a mommy should. He didn't like being barefoot...okay yet get the pictures. What I love about this is after I finished editing and I looked back at the final images, I realize how there's no way anyone would know all the behind the scene events that I mentioned had I not just revealed it...
Trying to pick cotton...
Okay, finally Jonah sees the alligator.
His mommy was a little afraid of this whole idea of an alligator. Well, I have lived her for a while now (near the bayou) and I have seen a number of young alligators in the bayou...which seem quite normal as long as they are young, small and above all stay in the bayou. Recently, I ran across one in my yard...yes, that's what I said. MY YARD...CLICK HERE TO CHECK HIM OUT. Now's this is the sort of alligator that I am afraid. He scared me sooooo much! This was less than a week later.

Where did the alligator go? Randy says they are just as afraid of us...and again that's fine as long as they are this far away. If they are afraid and very near and very big, I don't want to be any where around them!
After he hid in the water, he came up. Do you see him?
okay...I cropped it a little closer

To read Jonah's mommy's take on cotton portraits and the alligator, click here.

Jonah was much happier after spotting the alligator, but he did want to continue looking for them. I love this one. This is another one of those eyelash images that I have grown to love so much.


As you can see the sun in going down, we photographed until it did. I really like these of him by the bayou. They don't have much to do with cotton portraits but they are so sweet of little Jonah.
Sweet...

After the alligator excitement, so how another we talked this little two-year old boy into sitting by the cotton...I do not remember how, but we did.
I am just glad we did. So of these last ones are some of my favorites.

This is how Randy walked Jonah back to the car. It quite a little walk.

Jonah has spotted his mommy!

Last one: A Storybard of Jonah by the Bayou.
Now that we have all contributed to Jonah's knowledge of alligators including watching them in the natural habitat...not we have to teach him they are dangerous too!
~~jami~~

Thursday, October 30, 2008

SNEAK PEAK: Jonah in the Cotton Field


I have many more that I want to post from this session...probably too many, but I wanted to give you a new image to view for now. Jonah's mommy wanted to do his 2 year portrait session in the cotton field to signify their time in Louisiana (they're from MS). Jonah was not into cotton field portraits at all...but like usual...you would not know it from the finished products!
~~jami~~

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

My New Logo...

Check out my new logo. I have wanted a new logo for a long time. And I think I am going to like this. I also think it represent me and my style.

What do you think?

Now if I can figure out the watermark...yes, I will soon have new watermark for my preview images and for my blog images.

Please comment and give me your opinions on this.

That's it for now since I need to get back to work on many different things...Laundry for one! Yuck!

~~jami~~

Monday, October 27, 2008

ROLLY POLLY FOUR MONTH OLD

A SWEET TRADITIONAL PORTRAIT OF BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY, NICHOLAS... laying on his tummy...
The next three images of this little active 4-month old are of him being a little Rolly Polly. That's all he wanted to do...roll, roll and roll over again! It was quite funny now that I look back on it...not so much at the time!



Boy, was he fast!

Nicholas is also the little recent tea cup baby that I recently posted. It was captured the same day. He was really get tired of this "portrait" business and was about done. So I decided it was time to see what he would do in the tea cup! If you missed this image, click here.
THIS POST HAS ME UP-TO-DATE FOR NOW.
~~jami~~

Madison "just babies" [one more image]

Madison's mommy hit the jackpot this time with her mini portrait session. She got "Little Tiger" portraits and something fun and cute too! She has other cute ones too, but this was one of my favs.
You have to work so fast when you work with this age before you loose them!

Don't you just love the way she crossed her ankles. I love to capture children being themselves as she was in this image.

~~jami~~

Daddy's Little Tiger: Madison

Edited to add this one. I almost forgot this storybord.
Madison did much better than expected with letters...the last images she is hugging the U.

MADISON IS DEFINITELY HER DADDY'S LITTLE TIGER! Madison is 18 month old is the images. I was expecting this to be quite a difficult session...which is quite typical for toddlers. Madison wowed me and her mommy with great images!


I think is my favorite one!


Madison's mommy scheduled the "just babies" session to create a Little Tiger image for her daddy, but since "just babies" is designed to just capture babies just as they as well and since Madison did so great for LSU photos, we did some more fun images of her too [next post].

Stay tuned!

~~jami~~

ANOTHER LITTLE TIGER: CASH (12 weeks old)

His jersey reads: "I'm a little Tiger".
ISN'T HE THE CUTEST LITTLE TIGER?



Often this age is a little difficult to photograph. They aren't tiny newborns that curl up and they aren't that great at holding their heads up while laying on their tummies, but with a little patience, we got some images that I think Cash's mommy will be pleased with.
Cash is wear a purple LSU jersey that his daddy wore when he was a toddler. I love photographing children in clothing that has such a sentimental strings like these.



I just love his big eyes in these two close up images!
~jami~~

Sunday, October 26, 2008

JULIA..."just babies"

I posted images of Julia who is 18 months old in a previous post. She was a "Little Tiger". My first monthly promotion "just babies" was a week later and was re-scheduled in October (should have been September). Between being sick with sinus crude and adding additional sessions to my schedule it has taken me about a week longer to finish these than I intened. I did finish them tonight and I should have them available for online viewing very soon. Watch your emails for your passwords. This image of Julia wasn't theme oriented. So I wanted to be sure and post one of them as well. "just babies" is just for images like this as well as the theme of the month.

I have more images to post for this "just babies" promotion. So stay tuned for more fun images!

~~jami~~

NEWBORN BABY BOY--GREAT AGE: 7 DAYS OLD

How beautiful is this?
Seth (7 days old)
I usually prefer black and white images over color, but I really love this one [above]. I also usually prefer newborn portraits asleep, occasionally I get a great capture like this one of them awake. The more I look at this image the more I love it. I think he looks like a Porcelain Newborn Baby Boy Doll!

My other favorite for this session.


I haven't done a towel newborn image in awhile. When I knew I was getting this one so young, I wanted to do one. I am pleased with the results.
"in the hands of love"


"in the arms of love"
"face to face love"
a simple square collage...

I was looking forward to photographing this newborn. I photographed him about 3 weeks ago. It had been a while since I had photographed a newborn [remember I am catching up...thus all the other newborns posted recently were not recent sessions], but what I was really looking forward to was such a young newborn...they are usually still so asleep and so much easier the younger they are. From these images, you would guess that he was just as easy as I was anticipating. NO...IT DID QUITE GO LIKE I WAS PLANNING...but after much swaddling and his mommy nursing him we got beautiful results!


~~jami~~

Friday, October 24, 2008

ARE YOU READY FOR ANOTHER BABY IN A TEA CUP?

FOUR MONTH OLD
3-4 MONTHS SEEMS TO BE THE IDEAL AGE FOR CAPTURING THESE BABIES IN THE TEA CUP. This is baby Nicholas again...my what a difference a few months makes in a baby's life , huh? This is the second baby that I have photographed recently that was just not happy at all at this point....so I am thinking...try the tea cup...he's probably going to scream anyway, but what a great way to end a session!
Instead this munchin, starting laughing and smiling. I don't get it! Though I am wondering if they start laughing and smiling because they are laughing at us (photographer and mommy) laughing at them! Maybe...

Love this expression too...after a few minutes he didn't seem to know what to think of us laughing at him or what he was doing in the funny container and this is the expression we got.

GENERAL INFORMATION ANYONE:
Saturday is my October promotion for "just babies" and the Pumpkin Baby Day (costume)! I do still have a few openings for the afternoon. Call (318-757-7078) or email me (japhotography@bellsouth.net) or leave a comment here if you are interested in booking for tomorrow (Saturday, October 25th). If you are looking for preview images from "just babies" for September, I am almost through with them. Remember I did the a week late because of sickness and between me deal with my chronic sinus trouble and additional portrait session, it is taking me a few days than I thought. I should have them posted over the weekend or sometime Monday.
I have more images to post soon for the last "just babies" promotion that I mentioned and some other newborn portraits as well. But for now that will be it. I have a one-year old session to do in a bit.
Enjoy these tea cup images for now!
~~jami~~

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

ANOTHER NEWBORN BABY BOY

This is Cash.
He is 15 days old in these images.
For some reason, when I was editing, I fell in love with this image. I loved the first one when I picked a few to do the birth annoucements a while back, but now I think this one is one my new favorite.

What a precious little thumb sucker he is!









The New Family of Three

Okay, I was getting closer to getting caught up. This would have been it, but I have done a lot of new work recently...the last promo, and several new sessions.
I intended to have these done Monday, but in addition to everything else, I am still battling with my chronic sinus problems. It's the middle of the week and I finally had a productive day.
I still have a little more to do on this session and another newborn session. This will give you something new to view. More general information on several upcoming events to be posted soon.
~~jami~~



I had missed this one!

I always love newborn "sleep" smiles.






Friday, October 17, 2008

NEWBORN NICHOLAS...

Just my two very favorites from this session for now
Normally I only like black and white when I have black on black, but love this one of Nicholas and his brother Michael. I think this is so sweet.
And as far as it goes with newborn babies and their mommies..."it just doesn't get much better than this." BEAUTIFUL MOMMY AND BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY!

I have several other favorites, but I have to run for now. So this will be it until later. But stay tuned for additional information and for more new images.

~~jami~~

Monday, October 6, 2008

OUR LITTLE TIGER!

Often when I do portfolio, business cards, etc., I forget to use images of OUR LITTLE TIGER. But not this time! HERE SHE IS!
L-S-U

She's not the easiest child to work with...so as soon as I was pleased with a pose, I moved on. I am trying to prevent photographer's child (grandchild) burnout. Natalie's daddy is still suffering from it. Maybe not...he never minds taking a photograph with his Little Tiger!


I think my two favorite images are the first one and the "U" image in the storyboard. I only took one of her with the "U". I was pleased. So that was it.
I had a little mini session with Natalie this morning too as you can see since I was in the "mini" session state of mind. I did her in another little dress too. I will post one or two from that tomorrow or the next day. I hope you enjoy these for now!
~~jami~~