BOSTON CHILDREN'S PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHER

Baby Lilly might not only be one of the most beautiful babies I’ve met, but also the most expressive.  Sometime when faced with a very awake newborn, I get a little jittery.  You’d think I didn’t have two of my own, like I’d never dealt with an alert baby.  Like I look around and panic and say “Turn on the ceiling fan or something.”  I suppose that’s part of the reason we stopped at two.  But Lilly was amazing.  By eleven days, she had already developed these hand motions and poses and glances.  It was actually really neat to observe and document.  And she is oh-so-clearly in love with her parents, and has this amazing connection with her mother, already, forever.  I loved this session because it was a mix of lifestyle (awake) and beanbag (asleep and awake).  And because when she slept, and I stroked her head, I remembered that THIS is why I stopped at two, because I am able to hold and touch and capture new babies almost every week.  And I love it.

Thank you so much for inviting me into your lovely home (which by the way, I LOVED), and for allowing me to capture these early days!

[Photographers, if you are at all curious, the "lifestyle" shots on the couch with mom and baby are all shot at ISO 3200 with zero noiseware, proving that noise can be eliminated with correct exposure!]

Let’s back it up about 5.5 years. I am not yet a Mom [well, like 8 weeks pregnant with Christofer], but I have a “really nice camera” and a brand spankin’ new copy of Photoshop Elements. I tell people that I am a photographer and that I love taking pictures. It’s almost painful for me to go on with the story, but I am not shy about my beginnings. I volunteer to take maternity pictures for my friend Jen and her friend Ravi [I should really use my laptop camera to photograph the pained expression that is on my face as I type these words]. Let me be totally clear when I say my subjects were beautiful and so it’s not about that. It was about me setting up some sort of rigged getup with curtains, a lamp (for backlighting) and an on-camera pop up flash and shooting on auto mode. Then it was about me jacking it up in Elements. Not because I had to “fix” my work, because I knew so little that I thought wonking the daylights out of everything actually made it look cool. It’s a memory I suppressed. Completely.

Flash forward to about 12-18 months ago. Beautiful Ravi and her lovely family move right down the street from me. Still, the memory was too deep to recall. One evening I am teaching a workshop and looking around at my past clients (including Ravi) and a wave of embarrassment hits as I realize that the EXACT people I am poking fun of (people that go into business too soon or shoot sessions before they know what the fork they are doing)… well that “people” was me and like a movie, a movie of all my early sessions (oh, there were a few, you know who you are) start flashing before my eyes. I am sure I was inexplicably bright red. I also know that I am not alone, and that every photographer has a session or two hidden in their closet or under their bed that they thought was THE bomb and now realize it was A bomb.

Flash forward again to about 2 weeks ago. Ravi brought her gorgeous kiddos (and lovely mom) to the studio for a quick little newborn mini session [newborn sessions typically aren't mini sessions, but I'll shoot them that way if you are looking for sibling shots and a few quickies for a birth announcement rather than a full newborn setup]. I really feel like it was my time to redeem myself and make good on all those earlier images.

I really love Ravi. She might be one of the nicest people I know. I am not kidding. She is just genuinely REALLY REALLY nice. Her children are gorgeous and I am so happy she’s a member of our community and it’s so nice to see her face around town. I haven’t seen her husband since they moved here, but he’s good with me because he is of my people [this is where I start to channel my mom and talk about the villages even though I have never been to the villages and cannot speak a word of Greek. Unless I've had a lot of Ouzo. And I am in Santorini trying to communicate with a waiter.].

And so here they are! Ravi, we can set up a time for you to come by and see them all!

Last weekend I had the chance to photograph a really remarkable family.  The parents were a referral from another client who I just love and so I knew I’d really like them.  They contacted me for a newborn session for their TRIPLETS!  Seriously, how exciting.  I think to anyone that has become a parent, understanding the miracle of adding to your family is humbling at the least, daunting on some days, and an unbelievable blessing blessed no matter what.  Adding three, on top of two, is mind-boggling in the absolute best sense of the word.  To say that they were ready for these babies (even 10 weeks early), is an understatement.  To say that they are loved is one as well.  This family is so together and complete that it was truly a pleasure to have them at the studio.

On top of that, big brother and big sister are scrumptious, Mom is a hottie and dad likes to cook the way Owen does — on the smoker!

I also have to give props to Trisha’s website because I sort of got sucked into it and it gave me a lot of really great ideas for summer eating, buying organic, and I loved the weekly menus!  So head on over and check it out!

Thank you so much for selecting me to photograph this amazing time in your life.  I am thrilled.

“Hi, I’m Kristina.  I am Greek.”

To anyone other than a Greek, that would be such an odd statement to include in an introduction, but our people know that this instantly forms a bond and a long conversation of churches, Greek School, Aunts/Uncles and visits to the Mother Country.  This time was no exception as I shot the session… and since this family was also a referral from another (non-Greek) friend, we had many other connections a degrees of separation to discuss.  When this happens, the session flies.  I am always surprised to check my watch as I wrap up and realize that the time flew, and it was fun, and we captured great images to boot.

This little doll was wonderful, she seriously zonked out for a good part of our time and I was able to capture some beautiful images of her as a newborn!  Hopefully we can connect again and I can document her as she grows!

Thanks for a wonderful Monday morning!

I have gone back and forth as to whether or not I can write about this session, whether or not it’s my place, whether or not I can do justice to their story. But as you all know, I have a complete and utter inability to let images speak for themselves, and so I’ll try to convey what I am feeling without too much stumbling.

I had the honor of meeting Eric & Lissa through Eric’s sister Megan, one of my favorite clients. Megan wanted to do something special for them to celebrate the joyous occasion of the birth of their child, yet not trivialize the grief, sadness and loss they experienced when their lovely, beautiful, spirited daughter, Cadence, passed away just before she turned two. And so somehow, she seemed to think I could keep it together for this task. And I was thrilled and humbled and daunted by the request.

It is times like this, especially when I am out of sorts about the mundane matters of my own life, that I feel eternally and completely grateful (and again humbled) that this is my profession and that I can capture brief, fleeting moments of incredibly important times. It is times like this that I say a silent (and not so silent) “thank you” that I am no longer 1 of 350,000 employees, and that I am not “not working” and that I am able to meet people every day who impact who I am, at my core. And so it is these people, and this work, that make me a better person.

So Lissa, Eric, Baby Jackson, Angel Cadence, Megan, Jared and your entire family — a selfish thank you for the opportunity.

Baby Jackson is here and he is perfect. And Lissa & Eric are able, and allowed, to experience that perfection as a family and to love him with all their being and their hearts. And they know that they do not have to give up any of the love they will always have for Cadence, nor do they have to set aside any of her memories, because their hearts now have room for two.

I cannot say with enough conviction about how amazed I am of the power of the human spirit. And I’ll leave it at that.

Again, thank you for allowing me to capture your life.