It’s been about a year since we photographed Jon & Sue’s wedding.  It’s amazing how today, we are welcoming home their newborn son, Ace.  For me, I am so blessed and honored to have been able to be a part of their lives through such special milestones.  Capturing these moments makes what we do all worth while!  I’d love to show you all of them here but I’ll save the rest for the lucky parents. . . at least until their birth announcements go out.  Enjoy!

“This is so freakin’ cool!”  That was the phrase I kept repeating over an over again during this shoot.  Needless to say, photographing these adorable identical newborn twins was probably one of the coolest, most joyful things that I ever got to experience as a photographer.  Having four kids of my own I know that babies can be a handful, but two at the same time?!  I couldn’t even imagine.  However, their parents are nothing short of amazing.  It was like watching a well-oiled machine when it came down to changing diapers or feeding them.  All I wanted to do was hold the twins and stare at them in awe.  Identical twins!  How cool is that?!  What can I say?  I’m a sucker when it comes to kids.  Welcoming Anasofia and Alessandra to the world was such a blessing.

Barb & Damen – Congratulations!  Thanks for welcoming me into your home and letting me photograph these precious lady bugs!  Can’t wait to watch them grow up!

5:48 AM

“Hey, Madelynn!  This is Myra. We’re at the hospital now!!

Don’t think we can do the shoot today, Baby Mason is on

the way!”

I received Myra’s text the morning we scheduled to do Beverly and E.J.’s maternity session.  Like the good sister she is she relayed a series of text messages to Beverly that concluded for me to document the birth of their first born.  Needless to say, I was honored and excited!  We photographed their wedding last year and here they were, welcoming their first born on the eve of their anniversary.  It was sentimental for all of us, to say the least.  More so, for me,  it meant a lot to me that they welcomed me like family into such an intimate moment.

When they arrived at home, Amari and I visited them and he documented their first moments at home.  It was a great opportunity to capture the interaction as a family.

E.J. & Bev, thank you for letting me be witness and letting me document this miracle for you guys!  Love y’all!!

To contact us, please email us at info@foot-candles.com.

To view our wedding site, please visit www.footcandlesproductions.com.

To contact us, please email us at info@foot-candles.com.

This session marked a new beginning.  Not only for parents, Justin and Samantha, but for us as well.  We’re moving in a new direction with our photography and how we approach capturing life moments.  This set here, we feel, perfectly defines us as artists.  And we embrace that.

We are about capturing life as it happens. Real time. Not staged.  We wanted to make sure that this session was extra special for all of them.  We wanted a more natural and comfortable environment;  Something not at all contrived.  It made perfect sense to photograph this session in their home which has almost as much character as their family.

I’ve known Justin and Samantha for over ten years, way back before they turned Vegan.  Matter of fact, Justin and I won “Most Spirited” our senior year in high school.  :-)  Fast forward *ahem* years later, they are just celebrating the birth of their third child and first girl, Anjulie.  With her older brothers spending a day with their Aunt, it gave baby Anjulie the opportunity to get some undivided attention from mom and dad.  They also had a couple of visitors that day which added a more interesting dimension to series of events while we were there.

Enjoy!

We get a call about a week ago from Be-Naiah, a client of ours that we photographed back in 2009.  He was now the Site Coordinator at Oakland’s Ralph J. Bunche Continuation School and wanted us to photograph a few of budding student artists.  With no hesitation, we accepted.

Both sixteen years old, Demarco and Breana attend Bunche which, I was told is the worst and toughest school in Oakland.  Matter of fact, www.greatschools.org rates 1 on a scale of 1 through 10.  They say this is where all the bad and unteachable kids are sent to but what they fail to realize is that some of these kids just need a different outlet.  As an artist himself, Be-Naiah helps kids like Demarco and Breana find that medium that they can excel in.  There should be more people like him in the world.

The shoot was a lot of fun.  I really had a good time hanging out with these two.  They’re good kids and  I’m thankful for having the opportunity to be able to photograph these two in a different light; Different than what people perceive Bunche students to be.  They had me crackin’ up the entire shoot because they argue like an old married couple, kinda like me and Mad.

Thanks to Be-Naiah for allowing me to be apart of this project. Here are a few frames I took through out the day.  Enjoy!

I  mentioned it before but I have to say it again, I love babies and I love new parents.  There’s just something so unique about that dynamic that draws out such a raw and genuine emotion that I really love to capture.  Maybe it takes me back to having my first child?  It’s getting the opportunity to experience that feeling of falling in love with this tiny person that you’ve been waiting to meet. . . And when you finally do, it’s then that you really understand what unconditional love truly is.

Alice and I were pregnant almost at the same time.  I was a few months ahead of her but still was able to share pregnancy stories nonetheless.  So when I found out that she had Ethan 32 weeks premature I wanted so much to meet him.

I love Alice & Jose.  They’re the type of people that we could hang out with everyday.  No joke.  So we spent half a day with them at their beautiful home to try to capture them in their own natural environment.  So to Alice, Jose, Baby Ethan and Mr. Rocco: Thank you for welcoming us to your home and allowing us to capture the beauty of your family.  Enjoy!

There’s something about babies that just makes my heart melt.  Having four of my own, I know that feeling of pure joy, excitement, fear and anxiety all wrapped into one whenever I think about my children.  I don’t mean that in a bad way, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just that parenthood puts you through all kind of emotions you never knew you had and it’s at that moment that you know that your life has completely changed.

I cherish these moments.  Moments of new parenthood.  Moments of mommy and daddy just getting to know baby.  Moments of complete bliss and overwhelming happiness. . . even during the most simple occasions.  A smile, a burp, a toot. . . We all seem to chuckle over coming from this small and precious little package.  I love these moments.

I had the honor of doing some newborn portraits of Baby Oliver the other day in Vallejo.  Perfect in every little way. . .

Congrats, Jaime and Jessica!  And thank you for sharing your story with me.  Enjoy!

Gavin has to be one of the cutest 4 year olds I have ever seen and his sense of style put most adults to shame.  The session started off pretty rough.  It was cold out and he was certainly not in the mood to do portraits, especially without his mom and dad in the photo.  It took a little persuasion on my part (Thank God for Spongebob and Diego and the fact that I know about them!) to convince him that this children’s session was purely painless.  His mom called me the “kid-whisperer”.  After a few minutes connecting with him it didn’t take  long for him to warm up to the Gavin I first met during our first session last year (see here).  With Amari behind the camera and me entertaining we were able to snap some really cool shots of him.  I love ‘em!  Enjoy!

We love this time of the year for portraits, especially when it’s outdoors.  These are a few images that Amari photographed of our niece and nephew in Fairfield.  I must say that my niece has the longest, prettiest hair ever!  Not to mention my nephew is one handsome 12 year old!  Amari’s sister jumped in for some of the pictures as well and before long we had to call in my brother-in-law to join in.  I absolutely love the photos.  Hope you do too!