I cannot believe it’s been over a month since the last time I blogged. Well, I can, due to the craziness, but I am really mad at myself for not keeping up with my blog! Seriously, I love blogging and I hate that I’ve gotten away from it. I apologize for those of you who stalk my blog religiously (and by those of you I mean Shelby and Lorin haha) and I promise to catch up on images from this summer. I second shot on so many great weddings that I haven’t shared yet, and I had a few fun shoots to share with you as well. Let’s start with this one…. the Sones family…

Where do I even begin? Let’s start at a PUG meeting in Hartford about two years ago (has it really been that long?? Yikes!). There I was, in the lovely Carla Ten Eyck’s kitchen, trying to get over my shyness and talk to new people at the monthly photography meeting I go to. This was before we had a PUG group in Northampton, much closer to my home base, so I was driving down to Hartford each month for their PUG. So as I said, I was in the kitchen, mingling with some other fabulous photographers, talking about second shooting, and a super skinny (hate her), adorable woman with bright red wine teeth asks me about second shooting with her. I’ll be honest…. the teeth threw me off. And I am only telling this story because we have laughed about it many times since that night. Her name was Tania, and to make a long story short, I am so, so glad I looked past the red wine teeth (I mean seriously, as if it hasn’t happened to me PLENTY of times) because I am now madly in love her and her family. I was just coming from a bad situation working for a studio photographer who did not treat me well, and I was down on myself and down on my work and not feeling very inspired. Based on my experience, I felt like photographers were mean and competitive and you couldn’t make friends in this industry. I was SO WRONG. By going to PUG, I met (and continue to meet) amazing people who inspire me and make me laugh and who I feel like I have honestly become friends with. I would say that Tania was the most special of these people for me. She gave me second shooting gigs, but she also gave me confidence in myself. She showed genuine interest in helping me move my business forward. She truly wants to see me succeed, and she believes in me and my work like none other. She has become a great friend and mentor, and I don’t know what I would have done without her in the past 2 years. She is always, ALWAYS there for me, and hopefully I have returned the favor.

Tania wanted some new pictures with her boys back in September, and I was happy to meet up with them and take some shots for her. I pretty much think that Alex and Aiden are the cutest kids ever… they are going to be total heartbreakers when they grow up and of course because of their great parents, they are amazingly well behaved and polite…. especially when bribed with bright colorful lollipops :) Tania even brought their dogs Sam and Lucy along for the trip, and we laughed A LOT during this session. This was the session that finally kind of opened my eyes to “lifestyle photography” and honestly this is something I want to develop more in the future. The definition of lifestyle photography I found says that itis “a style of photography which aims to portray real-life situations in a controlled setting. Lighting is bright, airy and natural-looking.” I don’t know if my lighting was necessarily “airy” lol, but these were definitely the most natural looking family portraits I have ever taken, and I loved them. More importantly, Tania loved them, and that is most important to me. But I loved doing this style of photography because to me, if I was a parent, I would rather hang photos of natural moments showing real life in my house, rather than a posed portrait where you can see the strain in the parents face (because in between takes they are telling the kids to look at the camera) and the strain in the kids face (because they are kids and would rather look ANYWHERE than where you tell them lol). So yeah, lifestyle photography…. who knew? I can’t wait to see what else I can do in the future with this type of photography. I had more fun on this session than I can even explain, and I hope I get to do more sessions like this in the future! You know how I love my brightly colored doorways :) How cute did Tania dress the boys for this shoot???

Not to mention how amazing Tania looks... dear Santa, please bring me a skinnier body so I can fit into a pencil skirt...

I like this one for Tania's new website... Or maybe this one? Back with the whole gang... so this is what life looks like with 2 kids and 2 dogs... We were in this adorable little town in Connecticut... can't for the life of me remember the name of it... but there were plenty of cute spots for pictures! This was at an old estate across the street...

Hot mama!

Honestly, to see the love between these 3 is amazing. Aiden and Alex are truly happy boys!

One last shot of the happy family. Thank you for asking me to shoot these Tania, you are the best!!! xoxo

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The Sones Family