Phoenix Photographers | Serenity Pictures | Wedding, Family and Commercial Photography

I met up with little Miss J at Founders’ Park in Queen Creek today.  Her mama said that she’s usually extremely shy, so I think we were both pleasantly surprised that she did absolutely amazing!  Isn’t she the cutest little thing ever?  I don’t know if there’s anything sweeter than a little child like this…but of course that’s why I love doing what I do!

Yes, I actally *do* own a thesaurus.  I need to use it!  Would you believe that this little beauty was a 28-week preemie!?  Look at those eyes, too.  Overwhelming cuteness!

Are there even any words???  I need to find some synonyms to “cute” and “adorable” and “precious!”

Kingston joined me in the studio this morning for another cake smash!  I honestly think that if I could only photograph one thing for the rest of my life, I would pick this.  I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the adorable expressions and reactions that all babies seem to have!

Here’s a smattering of some recent favorites of mine.  With being so behind and then recovering from having the blog hacked, I figured I could save time and frustration by doing one post of several sessions.  Enjoy!

We were hacked!  It wasn’t the first time–it happened back in 2003 when I was running a tie dye business (yes, interesting tidbit there, no?) and it was as much a huge hassle then as it is now.  The good news?  We were able to restore an earlier copy of the blog and I didn’t have to completely start over.  I’m smart–I make back-ups.  The bad news?  I had spent nearly all night a couple days ago fixing the broken images and posting several sessions from the last few weeks.  I nearly fell asleep in the chair waiting for an upload to finish and went to bed without making a back-up.  Murphy was alive and well that night because the next morning…everything had gone *poof.*  And I cried.

In importing my posts from the blog on our old server, the images were lost.  So I have to manually re-add them to some 50+ posts.  It will take a while but I’m working on it.  Good thing I saved this project for my “vacation” which is really more of a “staycation.”  ;)

I’ve been too busy to keep up with the blog like I normally do, but I had to stop and post a sneal peek for this adorable family!  They were such good sports–it was about 58 degrees and windy on this morning–we were rained out the week before and 9am was my only opening last weekend (and it was a real bummer because my 4pm session stood me up and I could have done this family then after all, had I known in advance!).  In spite of the cold, wind and early hour, the images turned out great!  Here are a couple from the session–had to include on of cute little Miss.

I can’t believe it is December 1st already!  It feels like it was just late-July and then I blinked…POW!!

In our house, we have a tradition that Santa’s Elves bring a candy cane and leave it on the Christmas tree every morning in December.  And the Elves usually don’t bring just any old candy cane…they bring the nice thick Bob’s large candy canes.  For years we would have to scour all the local stores to find them and then buy them individually, usually at 35-50 cents each.  And that was if we could find them in time.  This year we decided to downgrade to regular candy canes just to make it easier on ourselves and wouldn’t you know it?  Last week I noticed that Walmart has a box of 2-dozen big canes for 4 bucks!  I bought that (and we’re already bought several dozen regular ones) so now I think our kids are going to have to come up with a way to give out a whole lot of regular candy canes!

(Disclaimer:  I much prefer Super Target or Fry’s to Walmart but sometimes I have no choice but to head into Walmart under duress…like when it’s midnight the night before Thanksgiving and I still need a bunch of things!)

December promises to be a full month which is good as far as I’m concerned, because that means it will go by quickly and before we know it, Christmas will be here!  I’m so looking forward to Christmas morning.  I think I’m more excited as an adult than I was as a kid!  Having two small children at the same time (K and D are 3 and 4.5…only 18 months apart) makes it extra magical!  We also will be lighting candles December 11th through 19th for Chanukah in honor of my paternal grandparents who passed away when I was young.

We adopted a family through the Angel Tree for an online community I’ve been a member of since 2002.  I had planned on taking the kids shopping for the gifts for the 3 children (outfit, book, game and treat for each) but I decided to order online so I could be sure we’d get everything we need.  We’ll still make a trip to the store for the treats that were requested (things like candy and chips).  I feel so blessed to be able to help another family this way.  We usually do Angel Tree through a local retailer but adopting a whole family has been nice!

Tom and I are renewing our vows later this week–we’re having an intimate chapel ceremony with just the kids, my parents and Tom’s parents.  Then we’re returning to the house for a mini-reception consisting of party platters from one of our favorite restaurants….Olive Garden!  A fabulous local cake baker is making us the world’s most adorable cake–I can’t wait to get my hands on it so I can photograph it and share the pictures here.  I’ve only seen a sketch, but wow!!  I had to get her to promise to make Katie’s birthday cake in January;  she’s so talented.  I’ve also taken on the task of creating bouquets for myself and the girls and boutonnieres for Tom and the boys.  I had never given much thought to how bouquets are made (we eloped when we were married in 1994) but once I started photographing weddings I started planning my own bouquet for our vow renewal,  even though we weren’t sure when we’d actually do it!

Lastly, it may appear that I’ve been a little remiss on posting sneak peeks on the blog.  I’ll give away a secret–we’re going to be changing to a new blog design YET AGAIN and any images I post now will need to be reposted once we make the switch, so I’m holding off for a couple weeks (Wordpress will allow me to preserve all my posts and information but not the images).  Hopefully that will be the last change we’ll make for a long while–it’s been a journey discovering what will work for us and while I think this blog design is cute, it doesn’t really scream “ME” or “US.”  We’re also changing our portfolio website to match the new “feel.”  We’ve actually had that portion down for a month or so because we had feedback that it was difficult to navigate and it frequently would freeze up–but a change will solve that problem!

So for now, Happy December to you and your’s!  Be on the lookout for our make-over!  :)

Everyone has outtakes!  Kids will be kids–they don’t always act like perfect angels through an entire session.  They might not act like an angel for even a moment!  But usually, I can capture some memorable images anyway!  The most important thing is that they have fun and that they laugh a lot–that way, they will remember it as a positive experience!

I love having a child who is almost always willing to pose for me!  She asks me often but that doesn’t mean we don’t have our share of outtakes and sour faces, too!! What 4 year old REALLY likes being told what to do?  And I try to keep my direction to loose suggestions and I still get the sour faces!

I had to chuckle as I went through these for the first time and I decided it would be fun to post a series of images that I think will make most moms VERY happy.  At least anyone who’s felt stressed if their child is seemingly not cooperative during a photo session (and really, isn’t that ALL of us?)!   So many people who’ve seen lots of images of my four year old have said, “You’re so lucky!  So-and-so would never be that cooperative all the time!”

Well,  do I EVER have a surprise for you! :D  And if you check back later, I’ll share the gems from our session as well.  You’ll be surprised the images were all taken within the same 5-10 minute period!

Just a heads up that we’ll be doing some changes/maintenance on the blog and our gallery site.  We hope to avoid any downtime, but just in case, we can be reached via e-mail at shellie@serenitypictures.net or phone 480.280.4408 even if the website is down.

Facebook introduced new rules about contests and promotions a short while back (after our contest started) and it is not against their TOU to host a contest (or even promote it from what I  can tell) on Facebook.

We’re considering several options for posting the entries and the voting but we should have it ironed out in the next few days.

So sorry for the delay–I never could have anticipated this and I’m very unhappy about it.

http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

Brayde was so cute yesterday–he came to the studio for a one-year old session and….drumroll please….CAKE SMASH!

The cake-smash images totally crack me up–the way Brayde kept looking at his mama to make sure she was OK with him digging into this cake with his hands!!

Big sister Alicia got in on the action too!  Her mama said she’s usually shy and slower to warm up, so I was glad she felt comfortable enough with me (and the studio!) to actually let me photograph her!

We’ll be seeing this lovely family again tomorrow at a beautiful park for a family session with mom, dad and doggie Remi–looking forward to it!

Technical difficulties!   We’ll be adding extra days of voting once entires are posted.  Thanks for your patience!!

We photographed the sweetest little family on Saturday for a Christmas card image–thanks again A and G!  Their little man was so smart and curious–he was so much fun and such a handsome little guy!   These are my two favorites:

Tom and I had a great time last night taking some images of the Holiday Boutique at Dayspring Methodist in Tempe.  They had lots of beautiful items–I’m heading back to pick up a few things! :)  I haven’t retouched these yet but I put together a quick slideshow and I pulled these images from that.

The slideshow is available here.  Thanks to everyone who put up with us at the event last night!  We did our best to capture the evening without being in the way! ;)

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Baby Lily visited us in the studio on Sunday and she brought along her wonderful parents!  What a gorgeous family!  Lily is a little doll and did so well–we had a wonderful time.  Here’s a quick peek for you guys!! :D  Thanks again for coming to see us!

Tom and I had the pleasure of meeting with Shawn late this afternoon and I just have one for now, but had to share it.  Brave Shawn came up with this idea and asked if we could light it–and of course I eagerly said “YES!!”   Tom was a little worried Shawn would fall into the water but after Shawn  told us it was only about a foot deep, Tom felt better and assumed his own position precariously perched on the steep slope right at the edge of the water (hey….someone had to hold our off-camera flash rig and it wasn’t gonna be me!! ;) )

I just love how these turned out–I really couldn’t narrow them down very far.  Here are some of my favorites from last Sunday:

We had the pleasure of meeting Matt and Allie Sunday afternoon and we did a fun engagement session at a golf course.  The grounds were spectacularly beautiful…Tom and I could have shot all day, I’m sure, but didn’t want to torture this couple (Matt especially ;) ) more than necessary.  My favorite part had to be all the opportunities to capture sun flare.  :)  Here’s a sneak peek guys–thanks again for having us up to see you.  It was a beautiful drive and we had fun on our way back down to our little corner of the valley!

Mr. A joined me in-studio yesterday with his parents and we had a blast!  The last time I saw him was in August and he’s changed so much–sitting, smiling and even crawling!  And very, very curious.  I have to say I think he’s going to be a hit with the young ladies too–I agreed to let my youngest daughter watch and help me elicit smiles today and this guy was totally flirting with her the whole time and she hasn’t stopped talking about how cute he is!  Watch out ladies!!  ;)

Tresha came to us for a headshot to use with articles she writes–she did great and looks so pretty in the shots we got.  I’m really pleased with the results.  I especially love the gorgeous green blouse, which is such a great color that looked awesome with my dark gray paper!

I enjoyed editing these and it’s difficult to choose which ones to share!  Here are some of my personal favorites! :)

Tom and I had the pleasure of meeting Leah and her mom this afternoon. Leah, fairly new to modeling, is working on expanding her portfolio. She did a fantastic job and is a natural in front of the camera. To top it all off, I can’t believe it, but it’s impossible to take a bad picture of this girl!

This one cracks me up!