Family/first baby photo session with Elizabeth, Brad and Emily

Not quite seven years ago, I was the photographer at the wedding of Elizabeth Brownell and Brad Austin at St Louise Church in Bellevue.  About 2 months ago I got an email from Elizabeth.  She and Brad now had their first baby, a girl named Emily who was ~16 months old, and Elizabeth had remembered that I told her and Brad that I offered a completely free first-baby session to all the couples whose weddings I photograph.  She wanted to know if I still did those sessions; after all it had been almost seven years since the wedding!  I assured her that I did still do the first-baby sessions, and we decided to talk again once spring arrived.

A couple of weeks ago we set up a tentative time for the photos, assuming that the weather was cooperative; no small assumption in Seattle!  But the day came, and we had a nice warm sunny day for the photos.  We did the entire session in the front and back yard of Elizabeth and Brad’s house in University Place.  Emily was quite a kick to work with.  She is just over 18 months old, and had very definite ideas about how the photo session was going to proceed.  The nice bow that her mom had carefully put into her hair was removed with regularity, but Emily would (usually) allow it to be re-attached without much fussing.

Emily is a very fast moving little girl, and had a particular fascination with a patch of gravel in the back yard.  At one point she spent 5+ minutes carefully picking up individual rocks and bringing them to her father, who ended up with quite a handful of rocks before Emily decided to move on to other interests.

Photographing a child of this age is always both challenging and fun.  Challenging because they tend to move very quickly, and can be somewhat unpredictable in their cooperation.  Fun because it is always a kick to try to make friends with a baby, who is well aware that I am not someone she knows and so is a person of whom to be at least a bit wary.  It took a little bit, but Emily quickly warmed up to me and was (mostly) cooperative about sitting still for photos (at least for a short time).  She was, however, quite determined that she was not going to be held by either her mother or father, so we did not get as many group photos as I would have liked.

Here are a few photos from the session. Emily is a real cutie,  I hope you enjoy the pictures!