Sneak Peek - Baby Trygg

This guy was a pure little angel during our shoot!

Tattooed Dad-to-be

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to photograph a beautiful, tattooed, dad-to-be Stefan with his wife Biz for their maternity portrait session. Stefan had gotten a new tattoo entitled "The Little Family" just to honor the occasion of the birth of their daughter and it was important to him that we got a few great portraits showing it off.

Here's one of the portraits from our session, used with my permission, featuring Stefan on a tattoo blog Needles and Sins:

Stefan and his tattoo

2nd Annual Seattle Children's Boutique Sale

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick blog post to let you know about a big sale coming up! (Gotta love sales, especially on kids' stuff.) Time to stock up on some cute clothes for those upcoming portrait sessions!

It's the largest sale of the year from the best kids boutiques in Seattle.

One day, one location, 18 boutiques!

Saturday, June 13th from 10-2
2913 East Madison Street, Seattle
(Next to Plum Shoes)

Here's who will be there...

Baby Nouveau, Birth and Beyond, Bootyland, Buggy, Bump, Georgia Blu, Izilla Toys, Lambs Ear, Mon Petit Shoe, Once Upon a Time, Plum Shoes, Pop Tots, Retro Active Kids, Spoiled by Nana, Sugar Lump, Two Owls, tottini, and Urban Kids Play

Newborns At Home

The newborn portrait session is pretty much the best part of my job and I truly believe it's the most important portrait session for your baby will ever have. It's the only time to photograph those uniquely newborn characteristics like wrinkles and worried looks, tiny hands and feet, downy soft newborn hair, and screaming like only newborns can do! Try getting artistic portraits, or simply in focus portraits, while holding your baby in one arm, your iPhone in the other and walking around in your sleep-deprived emotional state and you'll never be so happy to see me walk through the door!

Many clients love the look of newborns in the studio and are comfortable packing baby into the car and coming to me. But, many feel more comfortable staying home where they and their baby are still getting used to each other and, frankly, everyone can be in pyjamas! At home, you can be relaxed and not worry about having a "guest" over with a week old baby, piles of baby laundry, scattered bottles, and unwashed hair. I understand what my clients are going through so I am happy to come to your home and do a newborn portrait session in the most low-pressure environment possible.

This week I went to the home of Will, who is 7 weeks old but has only been at home for three days after being born at 30 weeks. He is doing great and weighs a little over 7 pounds now. While I was photographing Will, his Dad turned the tables on me and pointed his lens in my direction! I'm not one to like being in front of the camera but I realized this was a great opportunity to blog to all of you about what it's like to do a newborn shoot in a client's home.

You do not have to clean or shower or put on anything better than sweatpants and t-shirts (a nice t-shirt if you're planning on appearing in the photos!) You do not have to pick up baby laundry that you're folding on the coffee table or the rock band drum kit (Rock!).

You do not need a lot of space. I did Will's photographs in the small nook of space in front of their sliding glass door.

You need a window that gets some light and I will make a mini-studio. Here we used a large reflector that I brought and a baby vibrating chair covered in a solid cream baby blanket. Pillows or a boppy can also work.

Here I am hard at work:

And finally, I get my reward!

Many, many thanks to Graham, Sarah, and Will for welcoming me into their home three days after coming home from the hospital. Also, thanks for letting me share your photographs and your home on the web!

Stayed tuned for a sneak peek of Will's portraits from his newborn session!

Stefan and Biz's Maternity Portraits

Check out this slideshow I've made from the proofs of a recent maternity portrait session. The styling from this shoot is perfect modern-meets-vintage and was a great match for M. Larson Photography portraits.

Two people in love, with a baby on the way, and a gorgeous one-of-a-kind location and you have...a completely AWESOME maternity portrait session!

The Many Faces of Charlotte

This little one is kind of on the serious side...but that's ok too! She shows off a great range of expressions from "pouty" to "kissy" to "happy". Six months is such a great age to bring in babies to be photographed!

Holiday Cards

Hi Everyone,

Yes, I know you're still figuring out the last details (or first details?!) for Halloween next week but it's time to start thinking about Holiday cards for December ASAP! I have 6 great new designs* for cards this year! The first 4 are clean, white, and modern while the last two are more traditional, with rich colors. They can all be customized as well. So, pick out your favorite images from our photo shoot this year OR call me to schedule a mini-session in November to have fresh fall photos just in time for the cards. I will post more details about that soon!

Best,
M. Larson

~all the designs shown below have my watermark logo that will not appear on printed cards~
*designs by Limberdog Designs and V Gallery*

"Ornaments Card Design"



"Trees Card Design"




"Presents Card Design"






"Snowflakes Card Design"




"Red and Gold Dots Card Design"







"Blue and Red Dots Card Design"

Maternity in the Setting Sun

I already posted my favorite maternity portrait from Cari's first photo shoot. But, here are some of the most interesting photographs from her second, Old West style maternity session. We had the most gorgeous orange light from the setting sun...

Sneak Peek: Maternity

Cari is a good friend, fellow artist and photographer, and expecting her first baby! We were both so filled with ideas for her maternity portraits that we actually did two photo shoots! This one had a very modern, urban vibe, as you can see. This is my favorite image from this shoot. But, the second shoot was an Old West style shoot in the gorgeous setting sun...stay tuned for a post with photos from that maternity session!

Handsome Boy

I called this little guy my "George Clooney Baby", mostly because of that smoldering look he's giving me in the above photograph! I hope someday soon he'll come back with his older brother for a sibling photo shoot.


There's always a little warming up period where the babies and I get to know each other a bit:




But finally we are able to loosen up and have a lot of fun:

Summer Babies

It seems my summer is destined to be filled with cute babies! But, that's to be expected when you do so many winter maternity portraits.

Isn't this little guy so cute? I brought along my vintage cameras and I think it his outfit was very well suited to the Vintage Childhood look.



He was still a little working on sitting up for long periods of time by himself so dad's hands are just out of the frame here, ready to catch him when he wobbles! Maybe some day I will post some of the hilarious outtakes.

Dennise

Early this summer, I got to work with another great young woman who wanted some portraits to give to her mom. We headed to Ballard on a sunny afternoon for some great youthful, modern, urban shots.

Thanks Dennise, I had a great time! Let's do it again in the winter in hats and mittens and scarves!

My Baby

After showing off so many of your adorable babies on this blog, I thought it was time I showed of my own adorable baby. This is my new kitten, Fergus. I have never had a cat in the studio before but he really took to modeling for me! Enjoy!

Darby and the Vintage Camera

I have been super busy with photo shoots and traveling so forgive me for not posting in a while. I do have lots of posts to catch up on but these were so cute I just couldn't resist posting them right away! I photographed Darby, a typically curious 4 year old, and she seemed to really like my vintage camera!



Could she be a future photographer in the making?



I wish she had actually taken a picture of me from that vantage point. Instead, I got this one (and many more!) of her:



We had a fun shoot, ran around a LOT, and I think she thinks I live in the park with her toy giraffe (a long story!). Here's your sneak peek Mom - more photos are on the way in about a week!

Oh, baby!

Hi Everyone,

I love all the babies and kids that I get to photograph. But, I have to say that this shoot was probably my favorite of the year so far! About a month ago, I photographed Emma in honor of her 6 month "birthday". I chose one of her photographs earlier for my Mother's Day posting but I had to share a few more photographs of this little girl and I am sure you can see why. Look at her beautiful eyes! I have a feeling she will grow up to be as pretty as her mom, one of my first Vintage Motherhood clients.

Best,
M

It's easy to make six month old babies smile:


But she did this praying pose all on her own!