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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!
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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!Lily's parents Brandon and Richelle are friends of mine, so it's always nice to photograph her because I get to hang out with her awesome mom and dad too! I haven't seen them in a long time because they live in Connecticut and because of this darn pandemic we've all been dealing with for what feels like forever. But we got together for a socially distanced photo session where Lily could have her run of the yard and stretch those legs out after being in the car for so long! Lily wasn't super interested in sitting on any of my little rugs. She wanted to RUN. She was having a blast finding acorns, holding up gigantic sticks and ripping leaves off the trees. At one point Brandon said "These are going to be the weirdest Christmas photos ever", but you know what? I've been a photographer long enough to know that a 2 year old just does their thing and I have to be quick enough to capture the smiles when they happen! Luckily from years of experience and from photographing my nephew Seth so much, I have a very quick trigger finger! After she was done exploring the grounds to her heart's content, I finally lucked out with a prop she was interested in. My trusty Radio Flyer wagon with a tree plopped inside of it never goes wrong. She had lots of fun pulling it around and also using it as an acorn receptacle. Whatever keeps them smiling for the camera is alright by me! Here are some of my favorite photos from Lily's session! Get in touch to book your session here!In a year as hard as 2020 has been, it can be kind of hard to feel thankful. The year started off very rough for my family when my grandmother entered hospice care in January and we lost her in early February. Shortly after, the quarantine started and it seems like it's been a real downhill slope since then. But there have been bright spots this year, and there is still a lot to be thankful for. Even though I haven't seen much of my family this year, we're all still relatively healthy and most have managed to stay virus-free. My friends and I have managed to stay connected digitally instead of in person, and I'm happy that they're only a text or a FaceTime away. Although this year will be so different than others when it comes to meeting for a Thanksgiving celebration, I look forward to next year when we can hopefully get together without any fear. Since March I've been staying with my sister Lisa and her family to watch my nephew Seth during the week so my mother who usually watches him won't be exposed to any germs. Even though it means we have to stay six feet from my mom, I'm grateful I get to be with Seth every day and that I'm quarantining with my sister who's my best friend, even if we've been driving each other a little crazy. I'm so thankful I have my girl Gracey here with me. She's the most affectionate and silly little dog and I love her so much. I'm thankful my business has survived a year that has been the death of many small businesses. I had so many inquiries and reschedules from the lockdown, that I booked up really quickly for the year once I was able to work again. I've worked with so many wonderful clients this year and I also created so much personal work with the downtime I had, which was so invigorating creatively. We didn't go out much at all this year, even after the final phases of reopening happened. We've been very cautious. But we did go out one day after taking Seth's Christmas and some family photos at Prosser Pines to visit Fink's Country Farm. We thought he'd be overjoyed to see all the animals, but his favorite part was actually the pumpkins. He has a real affinity for them like his Aunt Laura and it was so adorable to see how happy he was running around and patting all the pumpkins in sight. That's a memory I'm thankful for. I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday! Happy Thanksgiving!Halloween is absolutely my favorite holiday. Even though I couldn't have my annual spooky party this year and the holiday looked a lot different than usual, it was still fun to dress up Seth and Gracey and take some photos. We didn't have even one trick or treater this year, so I'm going to be suffering from a sugar high for the next few weeks while I eat through all the candy! I bought Gracey's costume waaaay back in May when I saw it on clearance at Target. I loved dinosaurs when I was a kid, so I was excited to dress her up as a little Triceratops. She actually cooperated very well for her photos. There were a good few treats involved! My favorite one is a shot I caught just as she was licking her lips. She looks like a fearsome little beast (which she is sometimes) haha! Here's my little Gracey girl!       Seth's costume was thrown together a little quicker! My sister Lisa didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a costume he was going to wear once, since we weren't going to bring him trick or treating this year. So she decided to dress him as cousin Eddie from the movie National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, one of her and my brother in law Will's favorite movies. She bought him a robe and a hat, figuring that he could wear both of those again after Halloween! We put him in a pair of rainboots and went up to my studio for a few photos! If you've ever tried to take photos of a toddler in a hat, you know that the first thing they usually want to do is rip it right off their head. But I've found through much trial and error that if you slip that hat on just as you give them something else to hold and take their mind off of it, you'll be able to keep it on a lot longer. We gave him a little cup to hold and it completely distracted him from the hat!     Happy Halloween everyone!I've had so many memorable shoots with this family since I first met them at one of my pet portrait library programs! I always have so much fun with them! Last year's newborn session for Evelyn was a Fall lover's dream. We used pumpkins and hay bales and sunflowers, so this time we kept the theme going by visiting the sunflower field and pumpkin patch at one of my favorite Long Island spots, Waterdrinker Family Farm in Manorville. We started out doing some family photos in the sunflower field. Then the rest of the family took a break to enjoy some of the fun stuff the farm has to offer, while mom Nina and Evelyn and I stayed in the field to take some individual first birthday shots of Evelyn. She's such a smiley baby! Sometimes it's a struggle getting kids to smile when I have my mask on to shoot sessions, but with Evelyn it was a breeze. She's just a naturally happy baby, so there was no problem getting her to have fun for our photos. Nina brought lots of stuff we had used at her newborn session to the first birthday session. I love when clients do that, it's always so sweet and sentimental. After we were done with Evelyn's close up, we met back up with her dad and brother Owen and sister Juliette and we took a few more family photos in the pumpkin patch. Evelyn was very happy to stand up holding onto the big pumpkins and to spend some time sitting in the pumpkin carts! After we finished up, Owen and Jules were rewarded for their good job modeling by going back to play more on the farm! Here are some of my favorite photos from this very fun session! Schedule a session with me by emailing me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or calling (631)256-7476!Dominic turns 2 this month! This little cutie is the son of one of my best friends Dina and her husband Mike, and he has always rocked his photo sessions with me, from newborn to 1 year to Christmas photos to now! He's such a happy little guy and he's got a great smile. For this year's photos, we decided to visit the duck pond in Stony Brook for some socially distanced photos. Dominic loves to visit the geese by the water near his house, so I had a feeling he would enjoy the pond, with its large population of ducks, geese, pigeons and swans. I've shot a lot of sessions at the duck pond and I'm always cautious when I go there because of an incident I had there once, involving a close encounter with a swan. Thankfully the swans kept their distance that day, but the ducks, geese and pigeons practically swarmed us at one point because a passerby had the unfortunate idea to bring out some food! Dominic loved it though and he had a fun time following around the birds, climbing onto stumps and throwing things in the water. Ah, throwing. A two year old boy's favorite past time. Here are some of my favorite photos from Dominic's 2nd birthday session! Want your own fun visit to the duck pond? Email me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or call me at (631)256-7476.One of my favorite things about photographing babies is seeing them come back every year and watching them grow like weeds. I photographed Nathaniel and Caroline for the first time when they were teeny tiny week old newborns, then again for their 1st birthdays! Now they're 2 years old, running around with their big brother Benjamin Franklin the Airedale Terrier, who has been there every step of the way! This time their parents joined in on the fun too and we got some super adorable family shots. Even though this year was a little different because we had to keep our distance, it was still so much fun for me to hang out with this awesome family! We decided to do the session in their backyard this year so we could all spread out and the twins and Benjamin could run around to their hearts' content! We started out doing some family photos, then the twins posed on their very cute little lounge set and in front of their playhouse. They also enjoyed some time on their tire swing pushing each other and giggling. Near the end of the session, mom Sarah asked each of the twins to give Benjamin Franklin a kiss and of course they obliged. It reminded me of the sweet moment when they were tiny newborns and we were contemplating putting peanut butter on Nathaniel's head to get Benjamin to kiss him, but then he went ahead and did it all on his own. He has been the best dog brother right from the beginning!
Here are some more of my favorite photos from Caroline & Nathaniel's 2nd birthday session! Want to book a socially distanced session with me? Email me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or call (631)256-7476.Christmas is so much more fun now that I can spoil my nephew Seth. Last year on Christmas he was only 5 months old, so he kind of just sat there while we opened his hefty present pile for him. This year, after practicing at his first birthday in July, he’s going to be an old pro at opening presents! I’m excited to see him enjoy Christmas a little bit more now that he’s a little bigger. He’s still not old enough to quite understand what’s going on so I’m looking forward to next year when he learns about Santa and reindeers and stockings and everything else and can really get excited himself for Christmas. Much like his newborn photos and his first birthday photos, Seth’s Christmas photos this year were roughly a 3 day affair. We not only had a lot of outfits and backdrops to get through, but it’s also a much different kind of session taking newborn photos as opposed to 17 month old photos. Seth is almost constantly on the move and climbing and running and screaming and laughing and just generally being a crazy person :D It seemed like the only way to get him to smile and look at the camera was for my mother and me to sing the Winnie the Pooh theme song for him. Thankfully I remembered the words! It was amazing to see the difference from last year’s Christmas photos. He couldn’t sit up by himself then so my brother in law had to hold him up on my vintage sled and then I had to edit him out of the photo later. This year Seth was literally dancing on the same sled, just holding his Gigi’s hand for safety. It was a much quicker Photoshop job this year! Here they are! When we were done in the studio, we went downstairs to take a very special photo with Seth’s great grandma. She’s our Mema so we call her Seth’s Great Mema. My mother realized that the two of them, the youngest and oldest in our family, were going to be 1 and 92 this year just like in the Christmas Song. I knew we had to take a nice photo of them together to commemorate it.
And so I’m offering this simple phrase to kids from 1 to 92. Although it’s been said, many times, many ways, Merry Christmas to you!The last time Lily was in the studio, it was a very different looking scene in there. It was fully decked out in fall decor to celebrate her first birthday in October (hay, hay everywhere, as far as the eye could see!) This time the studio was 100% Christmas. This day was my last in-studio Christmas session of the year, so I was determined to use all the props in there one more time before I had to pack them all away! First we started with her adorable red flower pattern dress and little red cardigan. Lily was so happy and clapping the whole time, and she really loved to look at the Christmas books I had put out in the studio. I loved how she looked against the sequin backdrop I put up. I feel like it makes her beautiful blue eyes stand out perfectly. We switched to the brown burlap backdrop when she changed into her cute little Santa suit. This girl was the only toddler this whole season who was ok with wearing a Santa hat! Every other kid ripped it off crying, but Lily was happy to wear it as she played with the props and books. She did such a great job! Here are some of my favorite photos from our session! Email me at laurapeaphotography@gmail.com or call (631)256-7476 to book a session! |
AuthorLaura Paesano 
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All images copyright 2020 Laura Pea Photography
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All images copyright 2020 Laura Pea Photography
Contact Laura here.
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