I can not tell you how excited I am to have had Christie do Ethan’s pictures. I met Christie a couple months ago from a site called Mamasource.com. She also is a photographer in the Cedar Springs area and a nurse. She also has 2 girls. One is 3 and the other is 1 week older then Ethan. Pictures of her 3 year old are below.

I have been wanting some ‘Urban’ photos of Ethan. So she said she would help me out. We went downtown Rockford. It is so hard for me to get his pictures he just doesn’t look at me or sit still. He really didn’t for her either…BUT she got the most amazing shot of him. I am so thrilled with the outcome. Look how wonderful these are. She totally caught his personality.

He gave her a run! LOL

Thanks so much Christie, I appreciate you doing this for me.

I got together with my friend, Christie (from Christie Ricci Photography) today and her 2 daughters. This is her oldest daughter. She let me get some fantastic photos of her. We went downtown trying out and Urban photo session.

I had to try the mohawk out on Ethan. I think it looks pretty darn cute. haha

What a goofball!!

for longer then 2 seconds. How great is that? I have been trying to get some pictures of Ethan for a while, not that these are that great, but he never looks at me, and if he does then it is like 2 seconds, I snap the picture and I get his head turned with blurred motion for a picture. (Okay that is a really long run on sentence. HA HA. oh well) So I got these tonight while we were outside playing ball and going down the new slide he got from Nana and Papa. And what is up with this weather, it was like 55 degrees today. Oh I just want 70 degree weather.

Ethan is 18 months now, as of yesterday. He has his check up on June 4th.

I am amazed at all the milestones and words he has picked up. He has new words everyday. He learned to jump this week. Oh it is sooo cute. He gets both feet off the ground, and he thinks it is the best thing in the world.

We go to the park 1-2 times a week. Been cold though. He still scares me going up on the big play toys because there are big openings on there that he could just walk right off of. How scary is that? So I always end up going up with him because I just don’t trust him. He loves the park and being outside. He hates coming back in. We have to bribe him to get him back in….usually it is with a bath…lol

I just have to say….Look how stinkin adorable this kid is? HAHAHA I just love these pictures I got tonight.

Playing soccer with daddy…

These are pictures from another baby planner client. Thanks for sharing them with me. I love em.

Look at the mess he made with his lunch…..so funny. He then started to lick the plate….I wonder if he was still hungry or jsut being funny. haha What a goof ball!

Custom photography is more of a luxury than your entry level cookie cutter chain experience. Custom photography truly is not for everyone, it requires a level of commitment, investment in time and money, forethought and planning on the part of the subject/client and requires a larger time commitment for the photographer as well.
Clients who enjoy taking a more active role in the creation of their families’ memories have the desire to have portrait art that is truly personalized. These more discerning clients have been known to budget and allot time for a custom photography session. Many clients opt for it to be a once a year special experience, some opt to have custom photography sessions done to record their child’s stages in life. Having said this, it is clear that custom photography is not in everyone’s budget, it is something that most families save for to splurge on from time to time to memorialize their children as they really are (not posed and primped in the cookie cutter studio setting).
There is a great deal of time involved in creating high end custom photography sessions for a client. The luxury of great service, better choices and a supberb end product. The result of all this are heirloom quality images. The time invested at the session is only a small portion of time involved in this process.
Custom photography has been likened to purchasing a fine vehicle. To get to point B from A let’s face it, even a bus ride would suffice. If you want to luxuriate in a finely appointed vehicle, customizing your own experience by listening to smooth jazz while sitting in a climate controlled setting adjusted purely for your comfort in a body hugging leather interior, perhaps that Lexus you so desire is your cup of tea. Custom photography is much the same cup of tea. It is the Lexus of the photography world. It is where the intangibles make the experience truly wonderful and the images themselves make the investment of money and time truly worthwhile.
Custom photography can be broken down into even more levels. There are on location, studio, mixed studio/on location, specialty location and destination type photographers. The beauty of custom photography is in the choices and in the luxury of thoses options. The customized service level you are sure to experience will be amazing. The knowledge that your final images are the result of someone caring about those moments so much that they take extra time ensuring that the artwork you receive is good enough to stand by with their name on it. That level of quality and commitment is all but lost in the age of “mass produced,” “mass marketed,” corporate “everyone is a number”. Custom photography is based on being unique to you. How great an experience would be, to be able to sit back and allow a photographer to do this highly custom work for images that you will most likely cherish for a lifetime?
Keep in mind more than anything that the Lexus will never appreciate in value the way your portraits will. The portrait art you become invested in from your custom photographer will no doubt increase in value and become more priceless as the years pass.