I’m a few shoots behind on posting here, but with the holiday season fast upon us, it’s time for me to work double time. Holiday deadlines are coming and will be posted here shortly. As I sit in my office and listen to the rain, I appreciate the fact that I’ve been able to get in several ‘dry’ AND ‘sunny’ shoots in over the month of October. Here’s a quick sneak peek for a friend whose girls I’ve enjoyed watching grow over the past several years!

Meet the Park family. Such a cooperative and beautiful family! Oh yeah, and definitely entertaining too! Do you see that sun? Yep, it was sun in Portland….not too long ago. In fact, not only was it sun, but it was ‘hot’ sun for a late September afternoon. I couldn’t believe it when I got in my car only to see that the outside temperature reading was 82 degrees! As I look at the rain dripping outside my office window, I wish I was complaining about the heat right now. However, the forecast is for sun this weekend. If you’re looking at trying to squeeze family portraits in before it starts getting cold outside, now would be the time! Happy Monday! Have a great week and enjoy your sneak peek!

Planning around Oregon’s fall weather is starting to become more difficult. Fortunately, for this shoot, we had blue skies and dry ground. I met this family and their set of twin 3 year olds, downtown in the Pearl District and they were all smiles as well searched for goldfish and roly polys. We couldn’t have had more perfect conditions…happy kids, warm fall weather and dry ground! It’s looking like my next few shoots may be a bit tricky when it comes to ‘dry’, but we will find creative ways to make it happen. Mom and Dad….enjoy your sneak peek!

If you saw the the previous post, we now bring you Hayden AND his family. Now that school is fully in gear, trying to coordinate 5 busy kids’ schedules and get both parents all in the same place, at the same time…on a weekday….when it’s sunny is a near impossible feat. However, mom pulled it off! And successfully! What a beautiful family is all I gotta say. Somehow we managed to photograph everyone, and get group shots all in less than 2 hours. With time to spare to do a little shopping when it was all said and done. And, just as most of my shoots have stories, this one has  no exception. Dad was having fun teaching kids how to compact my reflector. Open, close, open, close…no big deal. I’ve had this reflector since the beginning of time…and although I would never admit it to myself, it was my ‘go to’ reflector. Somewhere, somehow, the reflector became floppy and wouldn’t fold. No big deal…I had another one. And…I’m not telling this story because I want to make dad feel bad. I actually want to thank you because I was overdue to replace it. And, have since purchased a new one that I absolutely LOVE! So, whether it broke or not on your watch, I owe YOU one

Last Sunday, I had the fortunate pleasure to photograph some of the families that my mom works with in the Eugene/Springfield area. Sight unseen, I was scrambling to find the best location to shoot these Limited Edition (formerly Mini Sessions or Shoot Shorts). The sun was out and it was just an absolute perfect day for portrait sessions. I can’t believe we had so many cooperative little ones (AND big ones too!). I know everyone has been anxious and eager to see their sneak peeks, so I won’t make this post too long. Portland area peeps – stay tuned…an announcement for Limited Edition Family Sessions is coming soon!

I feel like all my blog posts usually center around how lucky I get on sessions with the weather. However, not only did we get lucky with the weather, we pretty much hit the jackpot on entertainment during this portrait session. I thought having two boys to ham it up in front of the camera would be enough. But, not 5 minutes into our first location, Portland Mounted Patrol came trotting down the street and stopped to say ‘hi’ to us. I think my kids were jealous when they saw some of the images! To make it even more interesting, one of the officers addresses me by my first name….”uh oh…what did I do?” Turns out we are high school classmates! What a great surprise! The boys had a blast and got a chance to pet the horses. So…we go about our merry way, proceed to our next location….and…there just parked on the side of the street was a FIRE ENGINE! I really didn’t plan any of this but was probably just as excited as the boys but for a different reason! Anyway, I had a blast and I think the boys did too! Enjoy your sneak peek Jen!

The week before spring break, I had another fun session with the Thornhill Family of 3 boys. I was promptly greeted with groans because, what boy really ‘wants’ to have their photo taken? Well, I had a blast. I happen to know their mom from my previous place of employment and am always amazed at how she handles herself as she is outnumbered 4:1! Watch out girls….the youngest one informed me that he has 7 girlfriends, but only 1 of them is the one he’ll give one of his pictures to! Fortunately for mom and dad, the other two boys only have ’1′ girlfriend. Yep…they were all serious! Fortunately for them, we were graced with beautiful weather on a ‘no school day’ so, I’m not sure what they got to do after we were done, but I’m sure something involved refreshing coolness was in store. Hope you guys had a great spring break! Enjoy your sneak peek!

The best thing about my past experience and my current career is that I get to keep in contact with people I used to work with and see them in a much different light….so to speak. This mom, Cheris, and I used to work together at Intel.
This family photo shoot was about capturing memories. Their oldest son is about to embark on a new and honorable experience by serving our country. I know the whole family is anxious to see these portraits before he leaves for boot camp
on Saturday, March 6th. Best of luck! I look forward to seeing you after boot camp. Enjoy your sneak peek!

This post is LONG overdue. I photographed growing Mr. Owen when he was just a wee newborn and then again just before Thanksgiving right around his 6 month mark. We are making plans for announcing our new ‘Milestones Baby Plan’ and Owen and his family are graciously participating in being the ‘samples’ for this new plan. At any rate, these images were shot just before Thanksgiving and the poor little guy had a bit of a problem with some major diaper rash. As you can see however, this apparently didn’t seem to bother him as long as mom continued to play Justin Timberlake’s, “Bringing Sexy Back”. Owen got his groove thing on and danced like a champ through the photo session.

Enjoy your sneak peek!

http://www.melissahathaway.com/blog/2009/07/meet-owen-8-weeks-portland-oregon-newborn-photography/

For those of you that celebrate Christmas, we hope you had an enjoyable day with you family & friends. Here’s a little holiday greetings from us. An outtake of our day at Mt. Hood on Dec. 23rd. Wishing you all the best for 2010! Please leave us some blog lovin’! Cheers!

Oh yeah…friends & family…holiday cards are in the mail today!