Here are a few shots I took rapidly on a walk with one of my girlfriends last week. I love all the textures we find in my neighborhood's alley ways. I was in heaven when I discovered this gem of an alley with dozens of fantastic set ups. My buddy wasn't expecting a photo shoot that day... She is a bit camera shy but I convinced her to play along (that is for a limited number of shots) .Really I was just location scouting and I thought it would help to have a model pose to get an idea of how great the shots I could get would be. Now can you imagine what I could do if I had a model to myself for a whole afternoon. Who will be the lucky one?
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Talk about magical! I just love this shot! Here is one of my last newborn outdoors session of the year...It is true we have been blessed with gorgeous September weather and I may be able to stretch my luck a little further... I don't own a cat, but I would probably own a couple if I could. Having a severely asthmatic and allergic partner and running a newborn photography business from home, does not exactly allow for that...So, I get my fix by making friends with neighborhood cats. I don't exactly know this cat's name but my 4 year daughter has nicknamed her ''Rosie''. Rosie is my favorite neighborhood cat. She's the sweet kind that rolls on her belly as soon as she sees you and starts purring right away. She is one of the only cats around that will let my daughter do just about anything to her. So when Rosie came for a visit during the shoot, I knew baby Penny would be in safe hands (paws) and that the 3 of us would make magic together. Can you spot another magical visitor in the image above? Also, did I mention that I built this little bed myself!? What a wonderful family I was blessed to photograph. We captured so many great shots in this session, it made it nearly impossible to narrow it down to a selection. Well I could have greater problems in life, but capturing 8 days old Penny, 2 year old Reese and 5 year old Caleb was not one of them. It often gets chaotic and exhausting getting children to cooperate. I wouldn't say this shoot was easy but it was far from hard. The key is working fast in blocks and to try to keep it as light and fun as possible and if all fails offer a series of bribes. Having chill parents like Tania and Justin also helps more than all the other stuff I mentioned...So thanks for binging peace to your family and harmony in this world guys and creating such delightful children!
My beautiful daughter is 4 years old. One of her favorite things to do in the world is to scream: ''Mommy, mommy look at me''... and perform some stunt women act...Flying off the couch being at the top of the list. Honestly I couldn't stop her if I wanted. She will do it when I'm not looking anyways. I've tried to stop her out of fear she may hurt herself, but she's never hurt herself once. Knock on wood...Then I talked to parents around me and realized most kids to this. We're lucky that we have a very large and wide plushy couch so it does reassure me somewhat. But I assure you right now that if jumping off the couch was an Olympic sport, my daughter would surely win the gold medal! These pictures give you an idea of how the picture came together. I narrowed it down to these 2 shots and took another picture of only the couch. The wall behind isn't that big so I had to photoshop it in, then I centered my subject on top of the couch, enlarged the floor and went to black and white. I painted clouds with cloud brushes, tweaked with contrast, levels and exposure and finally sharpened. Et voilà! Angela had so much fun actually being encouraged into her stunts and it was fun seeing how amazed she was at the result.
Here is Mila, she is about 5 weeks old here. Her parents, Brooke and Mat, had just gotten engaged the same day. What a way to celebrate! I feel so lucky to be surrounded with babies and people who are in love all the time...I've had so many different jobs in my life but I promise you I am not leaving this one any time soon.
For a while now I have been wanting to build a baby bed out of tree branches and I finally did it! I'm so proud of myself, it was the firt time I ever built anything out of wood. Isn't it the sweetest thing you've ever seen. This sleeping beauty in my woodsy garden? I had almost cancelled this session that day because it was grey and rainy and I do use mostly natural light in the studio (it just looks soooooo much better). And in the summer I shoot half of my photo shoots outdoors. But I knew Mat was coming in from Florida only for the weekend and we wouldn't get another shot at this. So when the pouring rain thinned out a bit, we went out with a big umbrella and I took quick shots while Mat would hold it over Mila. I live on a very quiet street, but a few street walkers/neighbors stopped by enthralled by the cuteness of the spectacle. It was just such a special sight! I'm happy to hear Brooke and Mat's long distance relationship is coming to an end soon and they will be united for good since Brooke is moving to Florida next month. Long life and long love to you guys! Stella is Isa and Giancarlo's newborn daughter. Here is a sneak peek from their final selection. I had previously photographed this wonderful couple to memorize their pregnancy in June and found it so wonderful meeting them. This time around I got to meet their precious sweetheart and Isa's parents who were visiting from Brazil. All, just wonderful warm, kind people. Thanks to my neighbors Gary and Lucy for letting me use their garden for the shoots, which was wonderfully blooming and perfumed. It won't be my last visit! Stella was an easy baby, sweet and calm like her parents, we got a few ope eyes shots at first but she got shut eye very quickly and just could not be bothered by much afterwards.
Thanks for the love estrellita! Little Grace is 3 months here. I would say that is a rather difficult age to capture since they start to move so much more at that age. But we worked hard as a team. Daddy was right behind me trying to get a laugh out of Grace (along with me making a usual fool of myself) and we gave Grace a extra long tummy time work out so I am grateful for her efforts & daddy's. Those bright blue eyes are to melt for and...Isn't the first top pic hilarious!? I'm looking for captions for that one! Got any? Grace's mom holds a special place in my heart because she was my daughter's daycare teacher a couple years back and my babe was very attached to her. Tina has such a big heart we were all so blessed to have her care for our child and we grew very fond of her too so again it was a very special session for me.
Olive is the newborn baby of very dear friends of our family. It was such an honor that they have asked me to photograph their angel! Olive was already 3 weeks old when I photographed her so I was a bit unsure about how she would perform but she was still so tiny and went along sweetly with the process giving us the most delightful smiles and curling up like a 5 day old newborn. We had to somewhat bribe her older brother, James for his cooperation to pose in a few shots with her and we found Popsicle promises was our ticket to a great (but short) photo ride. We discovered something in my garden that looked like an olive branch (in the first top picture) but I'm actually not even sure what it is. Do you? I arranged white flowers on the side of her head. We smiled a the Princess Lea resemblance. We were blessed with Olive's peace & charm.
Isa and Giancarlo are two of the nicest people I have ever met. The session was so precious as their love & chemistry just radiated through the session. Usually I give specific directions to my models/clients as what to do in the pictures, which I did here too but it was the first time I asked a couple to freestyle for me (basically do what they felt like in front of the camera) and they performed much better than when directed. It was so sweet to see their genuine connection in action. I recently photographed their baby, Stella too so I will post their newborn session soon.
Every now and then you know you've got a a work of art in becoming in front of you and decide to take that extra post-editing mile to turn a simple shot into a masterpiece. And if I feel a picture has that potential I will spend the time (often endless hours) and make it a special project....This is the case with this beautiful shot! The wings were an actual shoot prop but they were resized and reshaped in the final edit. I smoothed out skin imperfection and got a textured layer on top and thinned the opacity in some areas only. Transformed in black and white, tweaked with levels, contrast & curves et voilà! An angel is born, or in this case is about the be given birth to as well. :)
So this is day two of my outdoors adventures! Thanks to my wonderful backyard, transformed into an instant studio & my lovely front yard, shooting outdoors is fast becoming the favorite part of my work! Here is little Arthur at 11 days. Meet his wonderful family: Laure, Paul & their young daughter, Clémence. Arthur was a breath of fresh air, a real breeze to work with, easing into my requests with trust. When I start a session, baby most often greets me with open eyes. It's time to shoot quickly these few ''open eyes'' moments and they are often my favorite pictures because the eyes speak so much as you know. The first picture in the gallery says everything about my style. I try to capture the essence of your precious angel without drowning him/her in cutesy props. Less is more, as it speaks more about one's essence & journey and less about the superfluous. My other favorite shot is the top one. I love the contrast I'm getting with the concrete wall in my backyard, the fluffy carpet & the perfection of a newborn. It was a beautiful warm day so Arthur being in his birthday suit, suited him just fine! Thanks to this wonderful family for their outstanding patience and kindness all through the session, I could only dream all session were as such. I always say chill parents: chill kid= amazing pictures.
What a darling little Anabelle was. I had previously photographed her beautiful mom, Patricia while she was pregnant. So Patricia and I formed a dynamic duo in the studio. She had brought gorgeous blankets knitted by Anabelle's fairy grandmothers. I say fairy because both were some of the most beautiful handmade blankets I have ever seen. You can see Anabelle nested in them in the first top picture. Trish aslo brought a beautiful flower she purchased from a hand crafter on Etsy (my favorite e-store!). So even though I am growing quite a large quantity of handcrafted flowers now since I just started to make them myself it was nice to have new accessories to work with. This always brings well welcomed inspiration. Patricia was at my side the whole time assisting and making sure Ana was safe and giving an extra hand. Because I don't have an assistant, parents often fulfill that role in the studio. I think it is great for them to have that interactive experience instead of having a stranger handle their baby the whole time. It creates a wonderful intimate session that they will always remember. So thank you for this Patricia. Baby was easy breezy, Anabelle settled like most babies after a good feeding and relaxed wonderfully into the process. What lovely memories we recorded that day!
Photographing 6 months olds can be extremely challenging. As they don't always sit on their own for long yet, they spend most of their time putting their fingers in their mouth and do not enjoy standing still much. Mackenzie did all of that but,
she never once cried or made it clear she wanted out of the session. Her wonderful parents knew we would work as a team propping Mackenzie back in position dozens of times and making funny faces behind me while I snapped away. And Dave and Kristin were wonderfully involved with the whole process. I'm so grateful for their patience and cooperation. I would not have gotten such great shots without them. Mackenzie was a happy baby, a delicious chunk of heaven, with a humorous pout and was such a good sport of going through all her bows, clothes & set-up changes. After the session, we were all exhausted but Mackenzie could've kept going! What an incredible kid! These are to of my favorite shots and here are a couple more with mom and dad: If any of you know me well, then you'll know I am obsessed with Pinterest, and that I'm just enthralled by recycling things into crafts. I handcraft most of my skin care & household products and I'm always looking for a fun diy project to dive into. That's when I am not swamped with photo editing work which is the case most of the time....All this to say it only made sense that I started to handcraft my own baby headbands and flowers. So here are my latest creations. I've been wondering for a while how to display them in the studio and yesterday I came across this antique silver bread basket at a garage sale and it all clicked! Here is the result complete with a photo framed in the middle of beautiful princesses: Lee-Ann and baby Anabeth. What do you think? I like crafting flowers so much I think I might eventually open an Etsy store to sell them. :) The flowers are mounted on 3cm alligator clips which can be clipped on to any headband. I'm also making headbands with much smaller flowers that are permanently attached to the headbands. The clipped flowers are fun because they can be attached to different knit hats or just clipped to hair or clothing and they don't have to be tied down to same headband. I'll be giving felt flowers a try soon and also would like to make baby crows and diaper covers. Bless my wonderful neighbors, Christine and Olivier who turned out to be living just a block away from me! It was an honor meeting their new sweet pea, Nora, who was just a few days old at the time of the shoot. Nora was a breeze of fresh air to work with cooperating in various positions. One cuter than the other. Christine brought the watch, a family heirloom she wanted photographed with Nora (amongst other props we used). I posted the one with the watch because it is one of my favorites. I love how her mouth just relaxed in a bout of exhaustion. Such a cute little pout! The blocks spelling her name came out of my 4 year old's room. A last minute addition to the perfect shot. Nora is such a cute name too, don't you think!?
Here is another beautiful family, in one of my favorite poses. Meet Caroline, Dave and newborn: Alex.
I just love that first picture of Caroline and Alex. One of my favorites at the moment! Baby Alex was already 17 days the day of the shoot, so we didn't know how he would settle in newborn poses but he was such a charm to work with and I was able to capture some magical shots with a little patience. Thanks to his loving and easy going parents for making the whole experience magical! Here is a sneak peek of Alex's shots: |
Lili Sweet
Lili Sweet is a newborn, maternity & family photographer with over 20 years experience from Montreal, Canada. To book a session or to get a quote please write to [email protected] or phone 514-272-7119 & visit my main website HERE Archives
July 2016
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