A mini change of pace…

Coming this January, I have been officially been in business for seven years. Seven years of working with multiple families, and nine years of being a photographer. This year, I made the decision to end family mini-sessions.

For many years, I know a lot of families have looked forward to this event. I can’t even count anymore how many have booked, and it was always a sold out event. Two days, 10 spots, once or twice a year, weather permitting. It was a great chance to get to know my style, and I have definitely developed some great relationships with many families, many of whom have become full-session and return mini-session clients.

Some may have noticed the lack of promotion of an Autumn mini-session this year. Unfortunately, there won’t be a mini-session family event for the year, nor anytime soon. It was a very hard decision to make, but it’s for the best I believe. After seven years in business, it became an event I currently need to take a little hiatus from. It was a change I needed creatively, emotionally, and a change my business even required. When I started out, we lived close to family and my parents were able to help us out with childcare during my busy season. Now, it’s really all me and my husband and we both work full time jobs. It’s not something possible for me right now on top of my full family session schedule, and my newborn schedule. It’s so busy during the holidays that I felt like with everything else, I was missing being with my family, and rushing to get galleries out closer to the holidays when I should be enjoying my time.

It really started almost four years ago when I had my youngest son. I was pregnant with him around Christmas time, at 34 weeks, seven days before Christmas, he came prematurely. He arrived at literally 12 hours after I delivered my last holiday session gallery. It was a wake-up call, and I knew once we move to our new duty station, I need to start a transition. I’ve very much slowly transitioned from removing super busy events since our move here,  and my business thankfully has adjusted to the DMV market. I am very lucky that my business is thriving, and my style of photography is very much appreciated, and it seems like it is also loved. My clients here really are perfection. I try not to book every weekend so I can spend time with my kids and my husband. My oldest is a pre-teen now and he was only one year old when I picked up a DSLR. Long back to back weekend events are not something my family can handle at this moment.

Also, my style has definitely evolved in being a hybrid lifestyle / portrait style. I know within myself that in order to deliver the best work, I want to not rush you. I want you to be able to take your time, and not be at the mercy of minutes ticking by. I love child led photography, and if your kids will need 10-15 minutes to adjust to our location, the time of the shoot, I love being able to provide that. I enjoy in between moments, little details that I think we forget unless we have some sort of tangible evidence of it. I am happy to be an instrument to provide a frozen proof of a memory, of a moment. In order to provide the best of your investment, I also need to be in the best mindset, and creatively this is what has been working so well for me. I have had a full year of families that have enjoyed taking our time. They have chased light with me, and I’m so glad it continues to be an adventure I have with my families.

So for now, mini-sessions are something I will be setting aside. It’s not completely done I think, but I have to take a break at the moment. I know it will come back again some day, but for now, we will have to revisit it at another time. I would more than love to recommend other talented photographers that do excellent work, and enjoy the mini-session setups! Also, please feel free to ask me about full sessions. They’re fun, I promise!

Thank you for trusting me with your memories, and such special times in your lives! I appreciate you all allowing me to create unique to you art work.