LONG ISLAND NEWBORN AND PET PHOTOGRAPHER - LAURA PEA PHOTOGRAPHY - Blog

Zoey, Hero and Robin at Blydenburgh County Park

7/26/2021

I met these sweet pups and their parents at Blydenburgh County Park to do a long-awaited session that we'd planned all the way back in 2020. Zoey is a black Lab/Chow mix, which is exactly the mix that my dog nephew Ash is, so I have a lot of experience photographing a dog with fur like hers. I couldn't believe how soft and fluffy she was, and she was so amazing at posing. Her doxie siblings Hero and Robin might be much smaller than their big sister but they more than make up for their small size with big personalities. Dachshunds are especially fun to photograph with their long beautiful snouts and big expressive eyes.

We went for a walk in the woods for our session and even though we got a particularly hot day in May, these pups were up for any challenge. They even did a great job posing on the skinny long bridge on the trail. I thought I might have to do a ton of intricate editing to get shots of all the dogs looking at the same time, but for the most part, they did such a good job posing together that my compositing expertise wasn't even necessary!

Here are some of my favorite shots from this fun session!

Get in touch to book your pet session today! Email me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or call (631)256-7476.

Photos from the Middle Country Public Library Pet Portrait Program on 5.22.21

6/30/2021

I was so happy to be back at the Middle Country Public Library in Centereach for another pet portrait program. This was my first pet event back after the pandemic made it impossible to gather safely for so long! We had 13 dogs come in to be photographed, along with one turtle and even one stuffed fox (a very low maintenance pet indeed!) Those last two didn't sign my model release forms, so unfortunately you'll just have to imagine those, but I assure you, they came out beautifully :D. It was so nice to be surrounded by pets again, even those of the stuffed variety.

To be safe, we held this program outdoors in the library's Nature Explorium, which is a really cute area at the library for kids that has all sorts of fun activities. It also provided some beautiful backdrops and really nice shade on a particularly hot May day. I can't wait to bring my nephew Seth there to play! Thank you to the library for having me for another awesome program, and thank you to everyone who brought their pets in for a photo!
Here are some of my favorite shots of the day!

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Mama’s Pet Session at Blydenburgh County Park

6/17/2021

Meet Mama! She’s a beautiful 11 year old pit bull and an absolute sweetheart. Her mom Elizabeth got in touch with me to take some photos of Mama to be displayed at her wedding in October. Her photos will be featured on the table number cards so that Mama can be a part of the big day. We met at Blydenburgh County Park and the weather had been looking a little iffy. But we persevered and only felt a drop of rain or two and we were able to get some great photos of this adorable girl.

Elizabeth had some very cute props for us to use, like wooden signs and some flower crowns she made herself for Mama to wear! She was so patient and took every one in stride. Even though she isn’t a young pup anymore, she was game to go everywhere we led her and she sat beautifully for our photos. We got some nice shots of Mama on her own and also some very sweet photos of the special bond she shares with her mom Elizabeth.

I’m so happy I was able to help capture some special memories for Elizabeth and Mama, and I can't wait to see some snapshots of how the photos are incorporated into their special day!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our session!

Pet Portrait Program at Islip Public Library 6.12.21

6/1/2021

I’ll be back at the Islip Public Library for another pet portrait program on their beautiful outdoor terrace. The program will be on Saturday, June 12th from 1pm to 4pm, by appointment. Please keep 6 feet of space between you and other patrons. Any pets are welcome, but please make sure they’re restrained with a leash or in a carrier to keep everyone safe. Appointments are available now to Islip patrons but will open to out-of-district patrons on June 9th. You’ll receive a free 8x10 and a digital file of your photo!

You can register for the program here.

Here are some photos I captured at this program in years past!

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Spring Pet Portrait Program at Middle Country Public Library 5.22.21

4/12/2021

I was on a four year streak of doing pet portrait programs at the Middle Country Public Library, until last year (I think you know why we skipped a year haha). Even though the pandemic is not over yet, we're getting back to it with an outdoor program this Spring! On May 22nd from 11am-2pm I'll be photographing pets and their families outside in the library's Nature Explorium!

This year instead of first come, first served, photos will be taken by appointment. COVID-19 protocols will be in place, so please come wearing your mask and practice social distancing from others. Pets should be clean, well-behaved around other animal, and in a cage or on a leash to attend.

Get more info and sign up for your time slot here.

I'm so excited to be doing this program! Not being able to do photo events last year was a huge blow to my business. I really missed meeting so many pets and people. Hope to see you there!

Happy Easter! 2021

4/4/2021

Spring has sprung here on Long Island, even though most days it doesn't feel like it temperature-wise! I've been feeling more and more hopeful these days about the state of the world, even though we aren't out of the woods with this pandemic yet. I hope you're all staying safe and healthy and enjoying your Spring holidays! We're celebrating Easter here at Laura Pea Photography, so I brought my nephew Seth into the studio for some Easter photos. We didn't get around to taking them last year with everything so crazy at the beginning of the quarantine, so we were eager to do them this year!

I love photographing Seth, but as he gets older, I'm reminded more and more why I chose to specialize in newborns and pets. 2 and a half year olds are crazy little balls of energy and they don't fall asleep like newborns and they don't sit and stay like dogs! Luckily he still finds it funny when I pretend to sneeze a stuffed animal off of my head, so I was able to get some beautiful smiles out of him.

Here are my favorite photos from Seth's Easter shoot! (Wait until the end to see a behind the scenes shot of how the studio looked after Seth was done with it! 😂)

Happy Easter!

How to Organize Your Photos so They Stop Driving You Crazy

1/30/2021

I hear people say a lot that they can't keep track of their photos. A lot of people know their photos are precious to them, but it's frustrating to try and organize them, so the task gets put off because it seems insurmountable. Photos pile up and pile up and before they know it, they have a mountain of digital files and they can't find the ones they want when they need them.

There are many ways to keep your photos in order, but this is the way that works for me and I'd like to share it with you. (Keep in mind that I use a Mac, so some of these techniques may be different if you're using a Windows system!)

Obviously, the most common system is to keep photos organized by year. I have a folder on my desktop called "Photos" (I know, creative, right?), and each year gets its own folder within that master folder. Upon importing the photos onto my computer from my memory card, I separate them into their respective month folders. If you have a mess of photos all together and don't know what months they belong to, I suggest arranging by "Date Created". You can also check the info of photos (Command-i) to see when they were created. Big events such as weddings, concerts or vacations (anything more than 30 or 40 photos) gets its own folder within that month to keep the folder visually neat and the pictures easy to find.

If you can, make use of keywords to make your photos searchable. On the info screen of your photo (Command-i), you can add text in the "comments" section, which will make it much easier to find later if you need to. Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to do this to more than one file at once, so you may need to copy and paste it to every file. If there are too many, it may not be worth your time.

When I have all the photos from that particular month in the folder, I batch rename all the files in the folder. To do this on a Mac, select all the files in the folder and right-click on your mouse. Click "Rename (#) Items" . There will be a drop down menu that says "Replace Text". Change that to "Format". When it says "custom format", change that to the corresponding month, year number, and an underscore, so if the folder was for March 2017, I would enter Mar17_ in that box. Keep the box "Start Numbers at" set to 1. Then click "Rename" and you're done! I find this helpful to do because if I'm searching for a particular file, I can usually remember in what month I took the photo and then helps narrow down the pool of photos I have to look through. If I have a subfolder in a month with a certain event, I might make the custom format something like Jul12_LisaWillWedding_ to make the photos easier to find later. This is especially helpful when it comes time to print your photos.

When you have photos printed, most companies print the filename on the back of the photo for reference. If you've named your files according to their month, this makes it so simple to place them chronologically in a book or photo album. If you're not a stickler for keeping things in order, another way to organize photos once they're printed is just to keep a photo box for every year and chuck the whole pile in there. Then they can be taken out, enjoyed by the whole family and put back in their respective boxes when you're done.

I hope this has helped you a little bit to make sense of your digital photo stockpile. It's so frustrating to me when I can't find a photo I know I have somewhere, so this system has really helped me. We document so much of our lives nowadays and I think it's so important to keep those memories safe and organized so that you can enjoy them! Good luck!

Once your photos are all organized, why not schedule a photo session for some more?!

Seth's Christmas and Family Session at Prosser Pines

12/21/2020

My sister, brother in law and my nephew accompanied me on my shoot at Prosser Pines with our friend Lauren this year. When they were there they took a walk around the preserve and afterwards said "Ok, can we do our Christmas photos here too?" Of course! It's such a beautiful spot for it!

Lisa had the idea to use Seth's Little Tikes car in the photos and put some of my little tree props on it as if Seth had gone to the woods to chop down his own tree. The problem was that his car is green with yellow dinosaur scales! But that's where Aunt Laura's years of Photoshop practice came into play. It was more time-consuming than my normal edits but I was able to turn his car red to match her vision for the photos. We wrapped a string of fairy lights around it to complete the look and Seth was happy to pose in it, because he loves his dino car! He wouldn't wear the trapper hat we brought for him, but that's ok because they still came out super cute.

We also took some sweet family shots of the three of them, but most of the photos were about Seth, because he's obviously the star!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our session!

Happy Holidays!

Handsome Zeus at the Beach

12/12/2020

Zeus is definitely my most famous client. I first photographed him a few years ago. I had been following him on Instagram for a long time and then his mom Katrina posted in her stories asking if anyone knew a Long Island pet photographer. I messaged her and said I was, but I knew she was a little far from me, so I suggested a few dog-friendly photo spots for her to look into. Turns out she was ok traveling for photos of her beloved pup, so we met and had a double session at Blydenburgh Park and in my studio. We had so much fun! We have a lot in common because we're both utterly obsessed with our dogs!

When I first photographed him, he had around 10K followers on instagram. He has tons on TikTok too and he's gone viral on there for some of his adorable videos! Once Zeus reached about 22K followers on Instagram, their account was accessed and held hostage by a hacker who demanded tons of money to get it back! As disappointing as that was, Katrina made Zeus a new handle and he quickly gained most of his followers back. He's at 15K followers now. Go check out their account @handsome.zeus
if you want to see some serious cuteness in your feed!

We met again on the beach this time for our session and Zeus did such an amazing job. He's well used to being on camera, as his mom has become a great pet photographer in her own right by practicing on him so much! We did some fun action shots of him running, he modeled his flower crown, and we did some really special silhouettes of Katrina and Zeus together against the sunset. It's always great to see this sweet and beautiful boy and his awesome mom!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our beach session!

Get in touch here to book your pet session today!

Dominic's Christmas & Family Session at Prosser Pines

12/9/2020

You might remember Dominic's adorable session at the Stony Brook duck pond recently for his second birthday. I was so happy to get this little guy in front of my camera again for a Christmas and family session at Prosser Pines in Middle Island! His mom brought a super cute mailbox and a letter so Dominic could send out his wishlist to Santa. I hope he gets everything he wants!

We did some individual photos of the handsome boy and a lot of family shots too. The light was so beautiful that day in Prosser Pines and we had a lot of fun exploring the trails, despite one alarming incident where Dominic dropped his Larabar snack on the forest floor and was NOT PLEASED when it got taken away from him! I feel you, buddy.

There are these cool tree structures in the Pines that Dominic loved to dart in and out of. I'm not really sure what the story is behind those or who made them, but they look pretty cool. If anyone has any insight into how those came about, comment below because I'd love to know. Google has failed me and I'm curious!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our session!

Get in touch here to book your session!