Posts Tagged: christmas at home portraits
Time to Schedule you Christmas & Holiday In-Home Portraits
As you print out the Butterball turkey hotline number to put on the frig, iron bedding for out-of-town guests (I have a friend who ACTUALLY does this, but she told me she’d kill me if I shared her number), stock the pantry, sharpen your knives, throw out the old bathroom soap, and get everything else pulled together for Thanksgiving, I want to give you a loving tap on the shoulder and remind you that it’s time to be thinking about your holiday portrait session. This year, we’re doing in-home sessions only, because not only do we love doing them, more importantly, YOU GUYS told us you love them too.
We made this decision also because we remember the best things about Christmas happen at home. Here’s a little excerpt I wrote about our reasoning from 2016:
For us, this year has been hectic, challenging and rewarding all at the same time. Through it all I’ve been very reflective and God has been incredibly forthcoming in showing me direction and insight all along the way both in my personal journey and the path of our business. I want all the work we do to be done with intention and relevance.
Nothing is more important during the holidays (or anytime for that matter) than family. When trying to create the concept for this year’s Christmas theme “family” and “home” continued to resonate in my mind. I wanted a way to create a personal experience for each of our clients, so my resolution is to offer in-home Christmas sessions.
I want to capture families gathered around trees with handmade ornaments, trees where all the fragile ornaments are at a height away from little fingers, stockings are personalized and tree toppers are those that have been passed through generations. I’d love to capture children in their Christmas PJs while they show me an ornament they made at school. Children years from now will recognize their surroundings in a photograph. What it looks like is different for every single one of our clients.
The same is true two years later. We want to be in your world during one of the most important holidays and seasons each year.
In-home sessions allow you to be more relaxed while we document the season, your family, playing games, eating and “doing life.” Some families want to dress up and make it more festive, others hang in their pjs. It’s ALL good.
Our prices have not changed since 2016! Give us a call or send us an email and let’s get you and your in-home photo session on the calendar.
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, engagements and weddings, brides, and 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 ©2018 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Christmas/Holiday Portrait Sessions : Don’t Forget to Book
If you haven’t already booked and are considering it, I’m hoping you’ll schedule your family’s holiday portrait session with us. This year, we are offering two options from which to choose. The first are the in-home documentary sessions just as we did last year. We shot several of these and we, and they, LOVED the experience. We’re excited to do it again this year. In-home sessions can be scheduled from the time that a family’s home is decorated (or being decorated) until December 10th.
Last year we spent time with the Minick family, the Hollands, the Pierce’s and others and it was better than we expected. If you’re decorating and think you want to go for it, I encourage you to. The Hollands were a perfect fit, because they decorated but were so relaxed and playful. They were all about games, food, decorating and allowing us to join in.
Studio sessions will be Friday-Sunday November 17th – December 10th.
We’re not changing our pricing for 2017! Here are the details:
For only $125, we will provide 5 digital images for families with up to 3 children. This includes the printing rights along with the option to purchase prints, cards, and gifts. Pets and additional children or family members are welcome for an additional $25.
Our fee is due when you make your reservation.
The Pixels’ studio is located at 1198 Curtis Bridge Rd. Wilkesboro NC 28697.
Call 336-990-0080 to reserve or email inquiries to mail@pixelsonpaper.net.
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, engagements and weddings, brides, and 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 ©2017 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Booking Christmas Portraits | Studio and In Your Home
If you haven’t already booked and are considering it, I’m hoping you’ll schedule your family’s holiday portrait session with us. This year, we are offering two options from which to choose. The first are the in-home documentary sessions just as we did last year. We shot several of these and we, and they, LOVED the experience. We’re excited to do it again this year. In-home sessions can be scheduled from the time that a family’s home is decorated (or being decorated) until December 10th.
Last year we spent time with the Minick family, the Hollands, the Pierce’s and others and it was better than we expected. If you’re decorating and think you want to go for it, I encourage you to!!
The other option is to come to the Pixels studio which we’re decorating for the holidays.
Studio sessions will be Friday-Sunday November 17th – December 10th.
We’re not changing our pricing for 2017! Here are the details:
For only $125, we will provide 5 digital images for families with up to 3 children. This includes the printing rights along with the option to purchase prints, cards, and gifts. Pets and additional children or family members are welcome for an additional $25.
Our fee is due when you make your reservation.
The Pixels’ studio is located at 1198 Curtis Bridge Rd. Wilkesboro NC 28697.
Call 336-990-0080 to reserve or email inquiries to mail@pixelsonpaper.net.
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, engagements and weddings, brides, and 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 ©2017 Pixels On Paper. Do not copy, crop, or remove watermark.
Christmas at Home | An Evening with a Young Family
Describing a family and what family symmetry is, as it turns out, much harder than capturing photos of the chaos that is actually very beautiful, symmetrical if you will. Does that make sense? I showed up at the Minick’s house to photograph a Day in the Life session – a holiday at home session – with this family I’ve been photographing for many years and through many seasons of life. And it was all there … all of that insanely beautiful chaos that makes family life so glorious.
We started photographing the Minicks’ Christmases in 2012, when daughter Amelia was brand new. Now, there are 4 in this family, as little Matthew was added just 6 months ago. When we discussed a Christmas at home session, mom Rachel said they weren’t organized and hadn’t decorated and weren’t sure how they would pull it off. My answer: don’t worry. It’s your life and your holiday too. It’ll look however it looks – most likely, it’ll look like love. 
I think people believe that holiday photos, any photo sessions for that matter, have to be buttoned up and the house has to be spotless and everything is ironed and there’s no nonsense or pets racing around, or dust or ……reality. I promise that I couldn’t care less as a photographer documenting a day in your lives. When I arrived at their house, husband and father Ryan was just pulling into the drive with Amelia and they did what families do: they all greeted each after being separated all day and dumped bags and removed shoes and picked up where they left off: doing life together.
Amelia (4 years) loves to be in the kitchen cooking with her mom and wanted to do breakfast for dinner. Who doesn’t want breakfast for dinner???!!! But I digress. They prepped the table and food, cutting strawberries and Amelia made the perfect little sous chef, although she took the time to taunt little brother Matthew who was in charge of banging bowls and being cute. 
After dinner and chatter came pajamas and, on this day, tree decorating. Like MANY busy couples who work and have young kids, they don’t get the tree up the day after thanksgiving nor do they try to have IT all pulled together. After reading stories and pulling out ornaments, they decorated and all of the day — all of the chaos that wasn’t really chaos melted into beloved family time. At one point, Rachel turned to me and said, “this is what our ‘real life’ looks like!” To me, it was gorgeous. The dishes, the kitchen noise, the constant chatter and love, the diapers and pullups, tree stand and step stool, glitter and magic, just all of it. It was beautiful. 
I want people to see the beauty in the every day. We say this all the time and then we go running right passed the park, if you know what I mean. Amelia in her pjs putting the star on top and Matthew lying in the floor like, “what is this crazy ritual I just walked into?” So much love and perfect symmetry. I hope families who feel that every photo shoot has to be crisp and perfect and clutter-free will call us. I can assure you that those gorgeous and sacred family moments happen all the time and our job is to capture them for you. There is symmetry in the chaos of family. Our job as documentarians is to help point it out so that you can celebrate and remember it.
I want to thank the Minicks and other families who’ve said “come over. This is our home.” We get it and appreciate it and couldn’t love you more.
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, engagements and weddings, brides, and 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.
Christmas at Home with the Hollands
Bakers know that the right ingredients will deliver nothing short of heaven when combined according to directions, in the right proportion, using the right tools and cooking for the right amount of time at the right temp. Occasionally altitude is a problem with cakes, but that is not what this blog is about. This blog is about how Christmas – a sacred time for believers and a joyous time for everyone – can accommodate many combinations of elements and still manage to create heaven. 
Welcome to the timber-frame warmth of The Hollands. This family is new to us, but we are already so incredibly grateful for this burgeoning relationship and for the opportunity to get to know this wonderful family that really “gets it.” Both parents, Kevin and Tram are in the military and they moved to Wilkes from Fayetteville, NC with their blended family which includes 3 children still at home: Colton, Ava, & Sophia. When I visited them on December 4th to document their holiday at home, it was cold, dark and rainy. When the door opened, it was like getting a hug. There was so much light, heat and warmth.
The family used to drive from their home to Ashe county to cut down their tree and this year, they all went together locally do the same. Next year, I hope to go with some of the client families to take photos of the journey, the tree choice, the car with it tied on top or tossed in the truck bed and the little faces looking out the window.
The ingredients that made this “day in the life” session so wonderful were varied and fun, specific and universal. I loved it! To wit: there was an impromptu paper airplane making and flying contest, stories around special decorations, origami ornaments from Tram’s aunt, beloved glass ornaments that were the girls favorites, running around in sock feet, games of checkers on the rug, decorating, coffee and hot chocolate preparations, stolen kisses between the parents. It was family. I was reminded of the other families I’ve done Christmas at Home portraits with and how normal becomes extraordinary when you pay attention. 
There were the posed photos that families want and I enjoy – when everyone is smiling and practicing good posture, but I have to say I love it when we pass that point of formality and people just act like I’m not even there. The Hollands are wonderful and Tram took the time to share that they had a photographer back in Fayetteville who’d been their photographer for years – someone who’d documented big and small occasions in their lives. She understood the importance of building a relationship, where trust and familiarity are combined over the years and that shared knowledge and care make for wonderful photos and memories. We look forward to many, many years of getting to know the Hollands, watching the kids grow and helping them celebrate all aspects of their lives.
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, engagements and weddings, brides, and 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.