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The Shoot & Share Contest is an annual photography competition run by shootandshare.com. Last year was the first year that I submitted. I was so pleased that one of my photos made it into the top 20% in the Pets category. This year, 3 of my photos received placement awards! One reached the top 30% percent in the Birth/Newborn category. Another placed in the top 20% in the Creative/Personal Project category. Lastly, one of my photos was a Finalist in the Creative/Personal Project category! This means that my photo made it through all 12 rounds of voting (!!!) and placed within the top 3% of the over 13,000 photos in the category. Last year, my best photo only lasted into round 7 of 12, so this was a pleasant surprise, considering the unbelievable amount of talented photographers who are involved in this contest. It means so much to me to see that I’m improving. I strive to always keep learning and honing my craft every year, so it’s very gratifying to see that it pays off. Two of the photos were taken for 52Frames photo challenges. This is a reminder to me to bring more of the creativity that I use for my personal art work into the photos that I shoot for clients. Those two photos were both composite photos, which I love to do, so that's also very nice to see. It makes me want to do more and more of them. Thanks again to shootandshare.com for putting on this awesome competition. I hope I continue to improve. I'm looking forward to next year! Here are my images that received awards!
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Spring is finally here! Not that it feels like it all that much, though. Hopefully we'll see a break in the cold weather soon. Now that there's more hours of sunlight in the day, there's more time to take beautiful photos! Every year, I make a photo book of each month and Spring is always a very fun and colorful time to look back on. I like to have a good amount of photos to represent each season of the year, so that's why I made up this Spring Photo Checklist. Use it to make sure your yearly photo album has a good variety of images throughout the year.  Click here to download the checklist! You’ll receive an email with the link to my freebies page, where you can download the checklist and all my other freebies. If you’re already an email subscriber, I sent out a newsletter with the checklist this morning, so check your inbox! There will always be a link to the freebies page at the bottom of every email. Happy Shooting! Rather not take these photos yourself? Schedule a session with me! Email me at [email protected]
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After we all ate and drank and the parents in the room had a chance to extoll the virtues of having either a boy or a girl, it was finally time for the big reveal. Lisa was so nervous, she was putting off the cake cutting, but all our friends pushed her until she gave in! Lisa and Will nervously cut into the amazing “What Will it Bee?” cake made by Lil’ V Pastry Boutique. The first piece revealed.......NOTHING! They didn’t cut deep enough to reach the colored candies hiding inside. Everyone was on tenterhooks and Will got impatient and just hacked right down the middle and they both started celebrating...
It’s a BOY!
I’m so excited! I can’t wait to meet my nephew. He is loved so much already.
Are you expecting? Check out some of the other gender reveals I’ve photographed to get some inspiration! BLUE or PINK
I think any form of exercise could probably be improved with the addition of puppies, to distract you from the fact that you’re not eating chocolate on your couch. Yoga is no exception. Since yoga is pretty slow and deliberate, it’s the perfect activity to mix safely with puppies, who can tend to get underfoot! I was so happy to be at JABS gym in Cutchogue to document their first ever Puppy Yoga class, which gave new meaning to the phrase downward dog! The class filled up in only 2 days and the registration fee went to benefit the North Fork Animal Welfare League. Originally, the event also had an aim to get a litter of puppies adopted, but by the time the class happened, they’d all been placed in their forever homes! The owners graciously brought their new pups into the studio for participants to snuggle and enjoy while they exercised.
The puppies were so full of life and they happily entertained all the yogis while they stretched. There were a few instances of furry mischief, like when one of the pups grabbed someone’s cell phone and ran off with it, but mostly they behaved beautifully! There were only two minor accidents of the bodily type, also. Not bad for doggies so young! No doubt this was the most fun yoga class attendees had ever been to, and I was so glad I was there to photograph it! Here are some of my favorite photos from the class!
The puppies were so full of life and they happily entertained all the yogis while they stretched. There were a few instances of furry mischief, like when one of the pups grabbed someone’s cell phone and ran off with it, but mostly they behaved beautifully! There were only two minor accidents of the bodily type, also. Not bad for doggies so young! No doubt this was the most fun yoga class attendees had ever been to, and I was so glad I was there to photograph it! Here are some of my favorite photos from the class!
There were whispers of a possible upcoming kitten yoga class....Stay tuned for more!
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I’m very excited to announce that my sister is having a baby! We are all so happy that we’re going to be welcoming a new member to the family. We are made even happier because it was a very very hard road getting to this point.
Lisa and her husband Will started trying for a family in November of 2015. The first time Lisa told me she was pregnant was in October of 2016. I was overjoyed. Unfortunately, in December we got the heartbreaking news that Lisa had suffered a miscarriage. It hit our family hard. It was painful to see my sister going through something so unimaginably devastating.
In May of 2017, we found out Lisa was pregnant again, only to get the crushing news in June that she had had a second miscarriage. Compounding Lisa's sorrow was the fact that several close friends and family members gave birth around the time of both miscarriages, the fact that I'm a newborn photographer, and the fact that Lisa works at an OB-Gyn office. Every day, more salt was poured in her wounds. She was very close to giving up on having a family, but Will convinced her not to give up hope, and I'm so happy he did.
Her doctors began doing exhaustive testing and found that she has two different blood clotting disorders that caused her miscarriages. She now has to take aspirin every day for the rest of her life, and has to inject herself in the stomach with medication every day for the rest of her pregnancy.
Lisa became pregnant in November of 2017, and was understandably a wreck for the first many weeks. She didn't even tell our parents that she was pregnant until she was 15 weeks. She's at 18 weeks now and is still very hesitant to share her news because of how she was burned twice before. Every impending appointment fills her with dread, only to be relieved right after that the baby is perfectly healthy. The worry will probably never go away, but she is making a valiant effort to be positive and to share her news with the world.
Yesterday, I went to her doctor's appointment with her and saw the baby move on the sonogram for the first time. It was an incredible experience. A rainbow baby is a baby that is born after parents suffer a miscarriage or still birth, because a rainbow comes after a storm. I cannot wait to meet this rainbow baby and document its entire life.
We started the process with a photo shoot with my dog nephew Ash, and a few photos to commemorate the struggle that Lisa has been through.
Lisa and her husband Will started trying for a family in November of 2015. The first time Lisa told me she was pregnant was in October of 2016. I was overjoyed. Unfortunately, in December we got the heartbreaking news that Lisa had suffered a miscarriage. It hit our family hard. It was painful to see my sister going through something so unimaginably devastating.
In May of 2017, we found out Lisa was pregnant again, only to get the crushing news in June that she had had a second miscarriage. Compounding Lisa's sorrow was the fact that several close friends and family members gave birth around the time of both miscarriages, the fact that I'm a newborn photographer, and the fact that Lisa works at an OB-Gyn office. Every day, more salt was poured in her wounds. She was very close to giving up on having a family, but Will convinced her not to give up hope, and I'm so happy he did.
Her doctors began doing exhaustive testing and found that she has two different blood clotting disorders that caused her miscarriages. She now has to take aspirin every day for the rest of her life, and has to inject herself in the stomach with medication every day for the rest of her pregnancy.
Lisa became pregnant in November of 2017, and was understandably a wreck for the first many weeks. She didn't even tell our parents that she was pregnant until she was 15 weeks. She's at 18 weeks now and is still very hesitant to share her news because of how she was burned twice before. Every impending appointment fills her with dread, only to be relieved right after that the baby is perfectly healthy. The worry will probably never go away, but she is making a valiant effort to be positive and to share her news with the world.
Yesterday, I went to her doctor's appointment with her and saw the baby move on the sonogram for the first time. It was an incredible experience. A rainbow baby is a baby that is born after parents suffer a miscarriage or still birth, because a rainbow comes after a storm. I cannot wait to meet this rainbow baby and document its entire life.
We started the process with a photo shoot with my dog nephew Ash, and a few photos to commemorate the struggle that Lisa has been through.
I got Lisa's permission to share her story. She and I both think that miscarriage is a thing that should be talked about more. Most women are silent about their struggles with miscarriage and infertility, making it an isolating and even more painful experience. If you know someone who is dealing with this horrible situation, please try to be there for them in any way you can. It's so easy to celebrate someone's joys with them, but it's so much harder to comfort them in their sorrows. Let them know you're thinking of them and ask them how they are. Even if they don't want to talk, they'll know that you care, and that can make a world of difference. If you yourself are going through it, please know that you aren't alone, and try not to give up hope for a rainbow baby of your own.
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Laura Paesano
Long Island, NY
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