The Fort ~ Where imagination happens!

I’m so excited to share this precious family session, submitted by Jaye from The Life in Your Years Photography, today.  It’s always fun seeing family dynamics expressed through photographs.  You can tell that there’s a lot of love between these brothers.

Get to know Jaye:

I’ve been in business for a little over two years, and I couldn’t be happier.  I specialize in lifestyle baby, kid and family photography here in NYC, Westchester and Southern Connecticut.  My clients keep coming back to me because my sessions are FUN.  We have a good, relaxed time during my sessions, and I think this shows in my photos.

© Pinkle Toes Photography

About the Session:

The great thing about little boys is that they’ve got a natural sense of wonder and adventure.  Everything has the potential to fascinate a little boy.  Nothing, really, is commonplace.  If we grown-ups pay attention, I think we can learn a lot from little boys.

This particular mommy wanted to hold on to the little moments of her life now with her house full of boys.  She knows what some of us have the tendency to forget — that it’s going really fast.  The moment-to-moment of keeping boys out of the dangerous situations they’re constantly drawn to can easily divert our attention from the wonder they’re experiencing in everything they do.  That’s why I love lifestyle photography … it helps us stop, look, and appreciate.  Not just their faces, but their curiosity, their enthusiasm, their personality … and of course, the love they have for their brothers (and their mommies and daddies!).

You can see more of Jaye’s work on her  Website  |  Facebook Page.

This Session Share from Simply by Suzy absolutely melted my heart.  The amount of love that these brothers have for each other is absolutely breathtaking.  The way Suzy was able to capture them in their element was so beautiful.  Please be sure to read all that she has to say about the session, there are some great words of wisdom in there. 

Get to know Suzy:

With the start of 2013 I am officially entering my fourth year in business with Simply by Suzy, although I’ve been doing photography since I was much younger.  My photography career developed as I was getting my Masters in Public Health at the University of Illinois-Chicago. I was studying maternal and child health and learning about doula work at the time, and my specialty of photographing birth stories and babies sort of just evolved naturally alongside that.

I now photograph birth stories, babies, kids, families and the occasional wedding with the help of my partner and my love, Vasili (well, he just helps me out with the weddings and occasional newborn session, and gives me lots of much-needed moral support for everything else).  We are currently located in Chicago; however we are always available for travel and have done destination shoots at both national and international locations including Paris & Ireland.

I think what draws me to photography most is my fascination with strangers, and I love that through my work I’ve experienced so many different cultures that people come from, life circumstances that families are facing together, and all the different ways that spouses and parents love each other and their children.   In terms of my artistic style, I try to keep my work very natural and focused on the meaningful connections between people but am often inspired by fine-art photography.

Although my profession is also my passion, my goal this year is to start making better boundaries for myself with the business and find more balance in my life so I can take more time to discover the things that I love to do and what fills my cup – although I’m totally obsessed with The Office, Vasili and I are huge animal lovers (we have 2 dogs and a cat), I’m really getting into juicing lately, and some books in my ‘just read’ list include Warm Bodies & Kiss the Girls.

© Yan Photography

A bit about the session:

These images are from a session I just did for my friend and fellow photographer, Shannon Dodd. Her littlest guy Jefferson just turned 1 and so I went out to their place in Iowa and visited them for a few days and to did some photos of him and his two older brothers – Sullivan, 5, and Willem, 7.  As usual Willem & Sullivan were so not having it with the pics – actually, that’s not entirely true. Willem is at the perfect age where he gets excited to do photos now with Jefferson, or rather I think he feels like he’s helping us out more than he enjoys being in the pictures. Sullivan on the other hand, ha that kid cracks me up.  He is such a rough and tumble type boy and is super hard to get any poses out of him, which is fine by me.  Not only does he push my creative boundaries by having to come up with all sorts of ways to get him to engage in having his picture taken, but I honestly think these more playful images we end up with are far more adorable and meaningful than any pose I could have contrived on my own.  For example, Sullivan didn’t want to pose on the bed with Jefferson & Willem. Okay, how about you help out with feeding your baby brother? Yes? Great!  Or for example, he also didn’t want to lay on the shaggy rug we had on the ground for a pic unless we let him keep his ring pop on his finger. Totally fine by me!  And not just Sullivan, but even with Jefferson we were having a hard time getting him to just sit and smile at us.  Instead he kept wiggling around, crawling away and off the bed, or even sucking on his own feet (which ended up being one of my favorite images).

I think it’s important especially when photographing little boys to just try and coax them into a certain pose but then let them do their own thing, because let’s face it. Most boys are wild and silly, and all of the funny little things they’ll do to avoid looking at you and saying ‘cheese’ can all make for adorable images and a great session experience, making the photos more than just memories of a family’s life with their child.  The whole session itself becomes a wonderful memory and that adds even more inherent value to your clients’ photographs.

You can see more of Suzy’s work on her  Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook Page.