Posts Tagged: family portrait photography
Portraits: Plan your year!
Yep. You nailed it. I miss you. All of you. I miss the giggling and group hugs that come with family portrait sessions. I miss the waving as we all arrive on site – at the overlook, the property, the park, the orchard, campus or cabin retreat. I miss changing my lenses amid the casual chaos of family dynamics.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been plenty busy, but with the holidays over, and the temps around freezing most of the time, this girl just wants to hibernate. The wilderness bear in me takes over and I am inclined to cook, bake, read, create art projects, and sleep exclusively. As long as I can keep these boys I love nourished and healthy……… that’s winter for me.
At some point though, I peep over flannel sheets and think: I MISS EVERYBODY! So let’s talk about planning your photo sessions for this year and find each other again!
- Are there members of your clan who are graduating from high school or college this year?
- Is someone expecting a baby and perhaps would benefit from our one year baby packages or a maternity shoot – or both?
- Are you blessed enough to have multiple generations in your family and want to capture everyone before the young scatter and the older folks find it harder to get around?
- Is there a milestone birthday, anniversary or celebration planned for 2022 that you want to commemorate with a fun photo shoot. Believe me, we get it. There are daily distractions, but these moments matter. Consider planning a portrait session.
Kids! If you haven’t had portraits of your children with their siblings in a while, consider doing it this year. Any season, indoors or out, with or without bows and costume changes, we can make it happen.
Think about the year ahead and contact us to schedule or with your ideas. Let’s do this in 2022!
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs newborns and families, special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License All photos are ©2021 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Michael’s Adoption Day Photos
Stories like this one, you guys [……deep breath, holding back tears], and opportunities to witness what generosity and unbridled love looks like …. they slay me. They humble me. And I am so happy to share this experience with you, my dear readers and friends. This wonderful little boy in the center of the image below is Michael, and he was in foster care for almost 5 years in Wilkes County. But not any more. The Roche family in Charlotte adopted him as their own child, and I was asked to come document the day on his actual Adoption Day. To say it was an honor doesn’t begin to cover my feelings about this.
More frequently, families choose to adopt infants or babies for any number of reasons, both practical and personal. Older children are often overlooked. This is why I so admire the the Roches for their generous hearts and belief that this little boy is theirs.
We met up early on the Monday of his official adoption proceedings at the Wilkesboro NC courthouse where so many people were a part of making this day possible. There were papers to sign and papers to be stamped, and Michael wanted to be a part of every second of it. He even mentioned that one day he might want to be an attorney, so we found time to slip into an empty courtroom where he could sit in the judge’s chair and pretend to be a litigator.
Throughout the morning, Michael and his new Mom and Dad were smiling and I loved seeing how the administrators were fully present and proud to be a part of such a special day.
I would love to be a part of many more of these moments, so if you are aware of an opportunity to capture an adoption, a special reunion of family or military, an important graduation or milestone, I’m your girl. I love the hearts of the people I get the pleasure of photographing and would love to capture your special day too.
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs newborns and families, special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License All photos are ©2021 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Thanksgiving Blessings to All
Sometimes we need a reminder of the “why” behind Thanksgiving and I’m pointing a finger at myself here too. I dug into my files, category “Uplift Me, Please!” and thought I’d share a few with you as we approach the big day of food and revelry.
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Albert Einstein
In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.
Elizabeth Gilbert
To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.
Johannes A. Gaertner
We should certainly count our blessings, but we should also make our blessings count.
Neal A. Maxwell
Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our Thanksgiving.
W.T. Purkiser
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
John F. Kennedy
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs newborns and families, special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License All photos are ©2021 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Vermeal Family photos
This lovely – and big – family contacted us prior to planning a vacation and birthday celebration for the matriarch Liz. Three generations gathered in Boomer, NC, at a gorgeous rented mountain home. Boomer is a perfect halfway point (pretty much) for this clan that is scattered up North in NY/NJ and all over the South.
Funnily enough, the Reid family from NJ rented this house around this same time last year for a large reunion and we captured those images as well. It’s a beautiful spot with amazing views, most of the time! The Vermeal’s kindly placed Pixels’ contact info in the guest book for others who might want portraits taken. They are a thoughtful bunch!
To that point, we think turn-about is fair play, so we were happy to play concierge and help Liz and her daughter Jessica. The family secretly planned a surprise celebration. We suggested caterers, florists and other services in area in addition to helping them coordinate color schemes for the photos that would look good in this setting.
Even though it was a foggy morning the day of the shoot, everyone looked wonderful, and there was a lot of laughter and levity. We know that not all families or individuals love to have their photos taken, but Ryan makes it so relaxed and fun. He created groups, and clusters of the family members, since there were multiple generations. The grandchildren range in age from 6 months to 16 years and Liz wanted to make sure she had a photo of just them.
I love the way these images turned out and know that the families are keen to have these as keepsakes. The icing was this wonderful note we received from Liz afterwards: “Ryan, thank you so much for all your patience and humor dealing with our family during the photo shoot. We thoroughly enjoyed the process and the photos look great. We are so lucky to have found you both!”
We loved being found, Liz! Thank you for letting us be a part of your special birthday gathering!
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs newborns and families, special events and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License All photos are ©2021 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Styers Family Portraits
We could call this blog “When the Ends Meet and Something Beautiful Happens.” For years, Pixels has been participating in a local fundraiser for a child named Drake. Drake has cystic fibrosis and for the last decade or so we’ve been providing a photo session to the silent auction that raises money for Drake and for cystic fibrosis. There is also a golf tourney to raise money and I encourage any of you who are interested to learn more at Drives Fore Drake. We love to give and are happy to help raise money for a good cause.
Being a part of Drives fore Drake is one side of the story. The other side is that our child Finley has developed a real affection and friendship (we all have actually) with a lady named MarySallie Steyers. She SHOWERS him with attention, humor, and snuggles and was until recently one of the teachers at his Play2Learn. MarySallie just happens to be Drake’s grandmother. So after years of supporting his cause, we were actually able to meet the Drake behind the cause. MarySallie said she wanted a photo session with the entire clan and that’s just what we did!
At the end of 2020, MarySallie, her husband Rick, their children Sallie and Sammy along with their spouses and children all gathered for portraits. We’ve photographed members of this family before, when we met up with Emily VanMeter Styers and part of her clan at the VanMeter family farm. Emily married into the Steyers family and well – let’s just say, it’s a small world.
MarySallie has been so generous with her hugs to Finley (see beginning of blog) that we wanted an image of her with all of her grandkids heaping hugs and love on her. Mission accomplished.
This mom and grandmother knew it was going to be difficult getting everyone together so she and I have been planning a portrait gallery for her home not only with these images, but with others we’ve taken of their family in groupings. I cannot wait to see it completed.
Not only did Finley have his photo taken with MarySallie, he took a few of his own with his camera.
Easter and Mother’s Day are coming up, gang. What mom wants more than anything besides time with you are photographs. So let’s talk!
We love family portraits whether they are set in the studio, the great outdoors, a specific location like the mountains or high country, or on our property in our outdoor portrait garden. Pixels on Paper photographs newborn and baby portraits, engagements and portraits of all kinds in our Wilkesboro, NC studio. We would be honored to meet with you, learn about you and your family and be a part of taking special portraits that will become, we hope, family heirlooms.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License
All photos are ©2021 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.