I'm posting these photos today because I believe new life means hope for the future—hope for the individuals who are lucky enough to welcome that little life and learn from it, and for all of us as a whole.
The world seems to be falling apart around us lately (but isn't it always?). As we give thanks today, refugees are streaming from their homes in fear. Many families are burying loved ones taken by senseless violence. And my family is trying to recover from a significant loss of our own. Even so, my heart is grateful. At the top of my mind right now are our incredible teachers, who are helping to shape our children into the strong, creative and giving people we want them to be; our medical providers, whose expertise and counsel have pulled us all through a tough and tearful month; and our little boy or girl, who is halfway cooked and will, if all goes well, be joining us in March or April. I am acutely aware of how lucky we are. As I watch my friends and family, whether they have little ones crawling or solving algebra equations or who are still just a dream in their parents' hearts, I see the next generation springing up around me and boy does it look hopeful. We can all be grateful that perhaps, thanks to these little loves, the future will be more peaceful than the present. (Although my kids are beating each other up as I write, so maybe I have it all wrong. Sigh.) Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
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How I got lucky enough to walk this life with her, I'll never understand. She is my little replica, except better on every count. Happy 5th birthday to our incredible Cricket!
I'll be posting more from her 5-year-old portrait session on the Haw River in a few weeks. I looked out into the backyard to find our yellow lab, Finn, hanging out with a peacock. Happy Halloween from our wild animals!
My last trip to Colorado marked the first time I've been there without setting foot in the mountains, but I promise I had good reason: Theo! My sweet nephew made a dramatic entrance into the world in March, and I was lucky enough to take his newborn portraits and design his birth announcement. And snuggle the heck out of him.
Also a first: we had a string of nine girls on my side of the family and then...Theo! Now we're trying to figure out what to do with a tiny boy in our midst. He's proven to be a pretty awesome addition to the family so far. It feels funny to post these photos more than four months later since he's now smiling, rolling over and learning new tricks. But at least I can report after recently spending a week with him, and since inquiring minds keep wanting to know, that his hair now appears to be my sister's gorgeous shade of auburn. Please pardon the months of radio silence. It turns out selling a house and moving with young kids is not so fun. Perhaps "nightmarish" is a better word? But the great news is that after furiously cleaning the house and clearing out for one open house and 20 showings, we have officially sold our house. Now we have entered a period of homelessness, which is...exciting...(other words come to mind here too). If all goes according to plan, though nothing has this summer, we'll be moving in two and a half weeks into our new place. I can't wait to show it to you! In the meantime, I have a lot of catching up to do on the blog. Yet to come is my nephew's newborn session, a mountain wedding invitation and several trip posts. Maybe I'll even throw in a final tour of our home of seven years. First I'd like to share Nora's 3-year-old shell-collecting beach session from May and talk a little about lifestyle photography. Trying to convince my girls to look at the camera and smile for traditional portraits has worked during some phases and failed miserably during others. (Nora is finally getting out of the fake smile phase. Thank goodness!) But that's just fine, because what I love most is lifestyle, or documentary-style, photography that captures context and activity. Here are a few tips for pulling off stress-free lifestyle sessions with your kids: 1) Don't announce a formal session. Plan ahead which time of day will work best given your kids' temperaments and energy, as well as the location and light. Then tell them what activity you're going to do, but don't mention the goal is actually to sneak in a portrait session. 2) Plan an outfit that is appropriate for the activity and compliments the landscape. In some cases, you may want a neutral outfit so the kids blend into the landscape, such as muted colors in a woodland scene. In others, you may want bright colors that will pop, such as yellow rain boots on a dreary day. 3) Set them free, then stay back and observe through the lens. Don't give much direction. Let them get comfortable and lost in their activity. Then if you see an opportunity for tweaking the shot, move around them discretely or direct them casually to move without saying it's for the sake of the photo. Once you've gotten some nice shots of them playing, casually say, "Look up and smile at me!" but don't push it. If they resist, back off and try again later so you don't interrupt. Wouldn't you rather remember the context of their fun than have 30 shots of them forcing a smile? 4) If you're assembling an album, social media post or wall prints, select a variety of types of shots. For example, combine a pulled back photo that shows context with a more traditional portrait image and a detail. We spent a weekend right after Nora's birthday at the beach, so once again I used it as the backdrop for her annual portraits. I casually set out the dress I hoped she'd agree to wear that morning—a birthday gift—and asked if she'd like to collect some shells with me. We left the rest of the family at the house to avoid distraction and took an early morning stroll on the beach together. I let her do her thing and just asked her once or twice to look up and smile, then let her get back to work. I love how these photos capture her energy, focus and love of the beach (and her beach curls, too).
I was born with a best friend waiting for me in the backyard. Our houses were adjacent to each other, and we spent our childhoods arguing whether she lived in my backyard or I lived in hers. My mom says I was never more creative than when she was around; we wrote and performed musicals, built elaborate forts and even dug ourselves a pool—a big muddy hole lined with three bricks, which in my mind's eye was somehow going to transform into a beautiful retreat. (It never did.) At least one summer, a particularly aggressive bird nested just above the fence in the swath of woods between our yards, and our moms had to escort us back and forth with umbrellas for protection as the mama bird dive-bombed.
My friend was present for so many of those quintessential moments of childhood, and I can’t help but smile thinking of all our memories together. It's been decades since we lived in each other's backyard and just about everything has changed along the way, except our friendship. When she got off the plane a few weeks ago for a visit, I took one look at her youngest daughter and felt more than 30 years melt away. Standing right in front of me was my little playmate with a dye job! Since this sweet little lady was turning 2, she needed some portraits. In lieu of a formal session, I brought my camera along to the park as she played with my girls, who have been begging for her return since she left. Watching them play together was nothing short of a dream. So what if I'm six months behind in posting my last fall session? A tropical storm is on its way out of town today, which seems like an appropriate time to share this rainy family shoot—one of my favorites from last year.
Something I love about having a photography business is connecting with other families. This session was special for several reasons, and it was such an honor to reacquaint with a college friend and get to know her family while taking their portraits. They live right in the middle of a quaint college town and spend a lot of time walking along this wall, so she thought it would make for a memorable backdrop. Boy was she right. The brick, the moss, the leaves and her sweet, smiley little boy make quite an impression, don't you think? Spring at last! (For those of us in the South, anyway.) As I'm preparing my spring and summer calendar, I wanted to let you know that I'm now offering digital packages for portrait sessions, which include the session fee as well as a pre-selected number of professionally edited digital images. Because clients select the number of images they would like edited upfront, these packages save clients money by reducing the time I spend editing each session.
Package pricing ranges from $175 for a mini session on a designated “mini day” to $1,375 for a multi-session package (such as maternity, newborn and 1-year-old). Drop me a line to price the session you have in mind. You can find more details on session packages here. And speaking of mini sessions, I'm going to try to schedule a spring mini day or two in late April or May. If you might be interested, please let me know which weekend days could work for you before I commit to dates. BOOK YOUR SPRING OR SUMMER SESSION BEFORE APRIL 20 AND RECEIVE 10% OFF THE PACKAGE PRICE. Just mention this post. Can't wait to see you and your little ones! I love to photograph families at their homes. And it doesn't hurt when their backyard looks like this either. While we had set aside plenty of time to capture this multi-generational family gathering and all the various groupings it entailed—engaged couple, newly minted toddler, parents and so on—the weather had another ideas. There is a reason the backlighting was spectacular and the colors were brilliant; an enormous, black thunderstorm was building directly behind me doing crazy things to the light. In fact, the light was changing so continuously that I had to adjust the settings on my camera between just about every shot. The pressure was on, and we all sighed with relief when we finished the session with all the groupings we'd set out for and without a drop of rain. And then the moment I got in the car and turned on the engine, a torrential downpour let loose and lasted the entire evening. I couldn't believe our luck.
Making a family feel comfortable in front of the lens is one of the biggest challenges for a portrait photographer. These lovely sisters were a bit shy at the beginning of their session. And then I asked if, perhaps, they liked to jump or run or twirl? The answer was a resounding yes. Suddenly they were very much in their own element, and I was just along for the ride. What fun.
(I didn't want to spoil any holiday cards, so I'm finally getting around to posting some fall sessions.) |
My new book is out! Click to learn more about it.Hello thereI'm Julia Soplop, writer and photographer. I believe there is something profound in bearing witness to moments of joy and pain in others’ lives. My husband, three girls and I live outside of Chapel Hill, NC. You can read more about me here.
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