lily p. studio and design co.

Sneak Peak ~ Maternity Session

I had the privilege of photographing a dear friend for a maternity session yesterday. She is such a beautiful person inside and out, and is already so in love with her little boy. He's a lucky little guy to have such wonderful parents waiting for him. She is also such a trooper. She took on quite a lot during this pregnancy, including graduating from ASU. You go girl!

Every once in a while I pull out my studio lights for a session. I really love getting to work in my "studio" aka my kitchen/living room, but it isn't the most ideal situation. I'm in love working with the beautiful natural light the sun offers, so it is rare that I set up the strobes for a shoot. I enjoyed this session so much that I may consider doing it more often. Maybe. Anyway, take a looksy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite shot.

 

Happy Thursday everyone! I'm off to shoot my sister's engagement photos tonight! Check back for those soon!

Family Photography: Crazy Fun

Sometimes I cringe when I get asked if I do family sessions. Then I take a breath, and explain my take on the family photograph. I come from the school of thought that a family session can be a great way to display the love and fun and craziness of your family, or it can be a surefire way to torture your kids and husband and get them to want to seek revenge on every photographer they ever see and never ever wear pastel hues again.

If you gravitate toward the pastel clad, sit and smile like a statue style of portraiture, no I don't do that.

If you, on the other hand want to have fun during your session, wear clothing that reflects your personality (and doesn't get your kids beat up at school), and capture amazingly beautiful and heartfelt images that truly showcase who your family is, then I might, just might be the photographer for you.

When I think of family sessions, the one that tops my list to date was last fall. The Merrill family won a session with the NieNie auction that I held, and I got more excited every time I talked to them over email about the date. We had some hiccups with kiddos getting sick and schedules conflicting, and then on the day of the shoot "someone" dropped my camera bag and busted my two favorite lenses. But we met, we shot and we conquered.... and this is what I would love every session to be like. Fun people, great clothing choices, beautiful little subjects and sweet afternoon light. (P.S.-if you aren't the Merrill's and I have taken your pictures, don't fret, I loved your session too!)  

Sneak Peak

A quick sneak peak for M and K. I had such a fun session with them a couple of weeks ago. K is such a cute kid, he reminded me of one of my nephews.

Such a cool dude.

This may be my favorite from the session.

 

Have a wonderful Mother's day weekend everyone!

Happy April Fools Day!

Happy April 1st everyone! Hope you get some Aprils fools day jokes in on your family and friends! Check out a 1957 April Fools day Segment done by the BBC on Spaghetti Farming. I always did love the humor of the British!

In honor of April Fools Day, I am going to give a 30 minute mini session away with one 8x10 print to the person that posts the best April Fools joke on their blog with a link to this blog at the end of the post. Then come and let me know in the comments here so I can check out your April Fools Joke! A hint, posts with pictures will definitely be treated preferentially!

 You have until Friday 12pm Arizona time to enter. I may choose the best post, or I may have Cooper and his "best fwend" Ty choose. We'll see! Happy April Fooling!!!

And because I hate posting without some sort of picture, here is one I peeked around the corner and nabbed of Cooper and "best fwend" and cousin Ty watching Lightning McQueen race in the Piston Cup this morning.

Product Feature: Storyboards

The newborn Special this month includes a custom Story Board, so I thought I'd share one with you! These are super cute, and what I love about them is that you can pull colors from a room, or from the photographs and create something completely personal and unique! Here are some 20x20 Designs from our recent Newborn Sessions.

 

Each newborn Session that is scheduled this month will get a Storyboard Free! How fun is that! 

Sweet baby

I just wanted to post a shot of our new little neice Sadie. Such a sweet baby girl! She's going to have to be pretty tough though, having two older brothers to fend off all the time! She was wide awake the whole time we shot, and we weren't sure we were going to get anything out of her, but I think we got a few! Here's one that caught my eye while I was looking through them today.

 

Newborn Special

You may remember a cute little newborn session I posted a couple of weeks ago, and something about a  special for the remainder of February. Well, I remembered that February is a short month, so I decided to wait and run the special in March. You thought I forgot didn't you?  I would like to extend....drum-roll, please..... my super-duper march newborn special! How's that for a ridiculously uncreative name! What can I say, it's late. So here's the scoop, anyone who books and pays for their newborn session during the month of March gets a complimentary 12x12 story board ($125 value) from their session. But that isn't all..... if you purchase credits toward product when you book, you'll receive 25% more credits free. So if you book your session and purchase $300 toward product, you'll actually get $375 of product when you order, etc. How does that sound?

Here's the terms.... You don't actually have to have your baby in March, you just need to book and pay the $200 retainer for your session. Sessions do need to take place before July 1st. When you book, I will pencil your due date into my schedule, so that I can make sure I have availability the week before and after your date. Newborn sessions are best in the first two weeks, preferably around 5-7 days old. If you have any questions about newborn sessions, the special or would like to book your session, please email me at cindy@lilypstudio.com. And to wet your whistle, here's my absolute favorite image from a newborn session I had this past week.

Freckles

When I met this sweetie pie, the first thing I noticed were the most divine freckles.... 

Momma B., your gallery will be up very soon, so that you can see more of your sweet angel kissed beauties, I promise!

Newborn Portraits

Here are a few portraits of a newborn I had the pleasure of photographing last week. I've been trying to post this forever, but my blog does NOT like me! It keeps freezing. Arghh!! And all I want to do is show you this beautiful baby boy! Isn't he sweet!

   

I think this is my favorite image from the session. Yum.

   

And because I love newborn sessions so much, I'm going to be offering a special something for the rest of february and maybe march (we'll have to see how much interest we have!) to anyone who schedules a newborn session this month. So stay tuned for that announcement. Oh, and that means that you call this month to book your session and pay the session deposit. You don't have to actually be having your little bundle of joy this month! Stay tuned to the details! 

Dust of the ol' blog

Well, I just realized why I haven't updated my blog in two months! Every time I try and write a new blog post, typepad freezes up on me and loses the post. I've sat here so many times and almost pushed the publish button...and right then, the blog gods look down on me and say nanananana!!!! And poof, my post is gone. Argh!!! I have so much I want to share..... let me try and give you a recap on the past two months....

At halloween Cooper and I traveled up to Utah and spent another holiday away from daddy (I promise we'll be home next year hon!) But we had a blast with my sisters, mom, bro-in-law and cousins.

My sisters and their spooky families...

 

Yes, Madonna and Richard Simmons did call me asking for their cheap-80's-who's-that-girl-lipstick and crazy exercise man pants back...and yes, Cooper realized at the moment that this picture was taken that it WILL come back and haunt him in his teenage years!

Don't you hate it when people write "wash me" in the dirt on your car and "I need a tan" on your pastey white legs!

All the cousins together.

 

This pirate has a nose picking problem.

 

We had a ton of fun trick or treating, but Cooper and I seemed to be holding up the tail end the entire night. I ended up picking him up and jogging between houses to try and keep up with the triathalon trick or treaters we were with! Fun times...

Then we headed up to Idaho for the real reason for our travels.... My beautiful grandmother, Edna, turned 90 this year and all of the family got together to celebrate her life! It meant so much to be there and to hear my aunts and uncles share fun stories and fond memories of her. I love my grandmother...she would give Polyanna a run for her money any day and make even the grumpiest person feel good about life.  

Doesn't she have the sweetest smile! 

Then I had my "cough" 30th "cough" birthday. It was a rough one, I must say. I had a hard time crossing the imaginary threshold from a 20 something to a 30 something. Although, my gut that resembles that green blob that slid off John Cusack's plate in Better Off Dead reminds me that time is marching on and taking my body with it. My wonderful hubby, sensing my dismay (and complaints every 30 seconds) swooped down like a knight on a horse and threw a surprise party for me with family and some close friends. So my birthday turned out to be pretty good...although I am still begrudgingly admitting that I'm um just past 29. I can't find the pictures from that night, so you'll have to settle for a pic of me and my knight from the family christmas party.

 

Which brings me to the family Christmas party. This was the Liljenquist side's party and it was so much fun. I love seeing my cousins, and it is especially fun since most of us have kids now. We had a live nativity, christmas gift exchanges, and the mack daddy  of all pinatas. We brought the pinata with us in Christian's little natural gas civic, and because it has virtually no trunk space, Cooper had to share his headroom with it. It kept falling on him and the poor kid was so scared of the monster that was "attacking" him that I had to hold it up for most of the hour drive across town! And the candy we brought only filled up part of one leg! He was huge!

 

Christmas was awesome. We stayed the night at my parents' house and everyone gathered in the hallway for the annual picture right before everyone rushes into the living room to see what goodies santa left for them. I adore how scary this picture is!

 

Openings presents was lots of fun. Cooper opened all of his and then helped everyone that would let him open theirs. Here is the fam after all the gifts were open.

    That beautiful angle does wonders for my thighs! Not!

I'll leave you with these beautiful photos of the rockband madness that went on for the rest of Christmas day. I had a little fun with dragging the shutter and getting a little motion into the images. You gotta love these!

 

 

   Fun times! So there you have the last two months of my life! Sortof! We had more fun times up in Utah, but I'll share those in another post. I also have had some sessions that I'd love to share but I'm tired so it will have to come tomorrow! Til then!