The White’s are a family from my church, with two of the cutest kids I have ever seen. They are so cute I can’t even sit in their general vicinity in the chapel during sacrament meeting because I end up just watching them the entire time instead of listening to what is being said from the pulpit.
The baby shoot from yesterday was so composed, I worried that I wouldn’t be able to adjust quickly to different situations. Little Eli definitely had me running around like mad the entire time, flipping the settings as fast as I could. I burned some calories and got some good practice in.
These are all shot on manual, and only edited in Lightroom. If you aren’t using Lightroom…. what the heck is wrong with you?
May I present, Baby Audrie.
And Big Brother Eli.
We jumped from the dining room right to the bedroom. Eli was sweet enough to jump up and turn on the lights at one point, as I had been complaining about how dark it was. Of course, he still wouldn’t smile at the camera for me.
We decided to go to the park. We put on our shoes and socks and headed out into the very overcast day. I was happy not to have to deal with any harsh light or shadows!
Two hard things to take pictures of: Kids on swings, and kids on slides.
Why hello little darling!
I had to turn the camera on rapid-fire to get this shot. Not looking at the camera is Eli’s “thing”. My thing is clapping when I get really excited. Audrie’s thing is looking cute with her mouth hanging open all the time.
I love her little tights that look like they have shoes attached to the bottom.
Eli, please sit on this bench and take a nice smiling picture to send to Grandma. Please smile for us. Please?
What if we give you some fruit snacks?
Cheesy grin? Check. Not looking at the camera? Check. The best I can get? Check.
Yeah, let’s introduce the crying baby and the fruit snack hungry kiddo into the picture at the same time.
Let me show you how babies work.
They go from happy!
To bawling.
To happy again, almost as fast as I can take the picture. And I’m pretty darn fast.
Out of the 4 people present at the park, 2 were crying by this point (I won’t say who they were), so we decided to head home. As I was packing up my stuff we decided to put little Audrie on the chair in the living room to see if we could get one happy and sweet picture out of her. I think we were pretty successful.
That Shot AND SOOC shot are one and the same this session. Look at that sweet little tear. Sniff.
Here’s the before:
And the after:
I loved the way she propped her feet up in this shot. Do you think they sell those tights in my size?
We ended the day by trying to get a nice shot of mother and daughter together. I’m in love with (the mom) Abbie’s hair color, and I hope they ask me to do family photos for them one day so I can get her in more pictures. Don’t you love the way it pops against that sweater?
Abbie, Eli, and Audrie, thanks for spending the afternoon with me. I’m glad we made it through snack time and a few bumped knees at the park, it was really great to get out of the house and come over and play with you.


































February 28th, 2009 on 1:10 am
Honestly, my favorite is the one of the baby girl bawling her eyes out. So cute.
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February 28th, 2009 on 2:12 am
Oh Jenna, that picture of Audrie with the tear … so sweet. You’re amazing. And I love Audrie on the blue bench. Great work, to have her on such a perfect background. You have a talent for capturing “that shot.”
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February 28th, 2009 on 3:56 am
So I’m de-lurking to say that I LOVE the first photo! I’m not an expert on photography, but I think it’s gorgeous!
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February 28th, 2009 on 7:48 am
The kids are beautiful, but you did a great job capturing the moments. My favorite “portraits” from my childhood are those that are in the moment, not posed. It helps to remember what you were like as a child
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February 28th, 2009 on 8:39 am
Jenna! Again, THANK YOU! I love love LOVE these pictures (i think you may already know that)! You did an amazing job. Kids are so hard to take good pictures of. And yes, we will definitely have you back for family pictures. And next time I will try to not look so goofy kissing my baby.
I too have a hard time trying to focus in church, but it usually because I’m trying to make these two happy.
P.S. Eli is still talking about the park with Jenna. We really should play again soon. He loves you!
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February 28th, 2009 on 8:43 am
Those are amazing pictures. You really make their eyes pop. Eli looks adorable, I love the cheesy grin.
I’m sad you live so far away, my best friends boy would be the best subject for your kids pictures. He’s a model in the making I swear. I’ve never seen someone pose so much in my life.
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February 28th, 2009 on 8:47 am
Okay, I just showed Eli all the pictures and he said “Jenna come over, pllllease? I want to go see Jenna at the park!
I tell ya, you made an impact on this little guy.
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February 28th, 2009 on 9:18 am
These are adorable! Kids are definitely hard to shoot, especially doing it all manually.
I have a tip that might help you get better eye contact and more natural smiles from Eli and any other toddlers or younger kids that you’ll be shooting. Have them say silly phrases or words that might make them smile at the thought of them. Like “stinky feet”, “Mommy” or “i love Mommy”, “pizza”, “fuzzy pickles”. It might be different for each kid, sometimes getting them into a conversation about their favorite toy or TV character is helpful too.
That’s from my deep dark vault of Sear’s Portrait studio tricks- hope it helps!
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February 28th, 2009 on 9:37 am
I’d love to hear why you think everyone should be using Lightroom. I’ve tried using it several times in the past, and just never saw what was more efficient about it than doing quick fixes in Photoshop, and I HATED (hated!!!) how it didn’t directly save changes to the actual photo file itself, just to the picture file in Lightroom (so when you went to upload the picture, you either uploaded the non-edited version, or you would have to go through the whole Export thing). Is there some way around that — as in, you just hit save, and it SAVES the actual data, not just to the program, but to the file itself? Perhaps the program has changed that since I last played around it with (several months ago), but I honestly didn’t get why it was better than Photoshop. I know it does batch processing, but when I take 100 photos, each one requires different tweaks, so the batch processing never appealed to me — the photos never required the same changes. I think I’m just totally missing the mark for Lightroom and I’d love to hear what I’m just not getting!
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February 28th, 2009 on 10:40 am
Oh, beautiful. See, THESE are the types of pictures I like. Plus, you have a fantastic camera so they’re great quality. Ah. This brings me happiness. The kids are so adorable.
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February 28th, 2009 on 12:26 pm
Wow Jenna!! These are stunning! I LOVE the 2 of the little girl smiling. Fantastic! Which lens did you use on this shoot?
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February 28th, 2009 on 12:27 pm
Oh, and I’m glad you got Lightroom!! Isn’t it amazing?
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February 28th, 2009 on 6:54 pm
Not helping the baby fever at all Jenna…
But please, go on!
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February 28th, 2009 on 11:59 pm
Love those photos so so so much!
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March 1st, 2009 on 3:02 am
Keep pursuing this passion you have for photography. I think you have a knack for it
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March 1st, 2009 on 3:45 am
The crying one is so cute!
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March 2nd, 2009 on 10:12 pm
What a cute bunch of kids!
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