Maple Valley family photo session | Maple Valley – Eastside family – child photographer

October 22, 2015

This Maple Valley family photo session was with a family I’ve spent the last year photographing. Starting with when little miss Addy was still in her momma’s belly. Watching their girls grow has been such a pleasure! Being a mom of three young boys, it’s crazy just how much different it is photographing little girls. My boys like to run around and could literally care less about smiling for the camera, but these girls… these girls are the perfect models. Seriously. With summer winding down and the beautiful sunshine and warmth on its way out, it was nice to able to sit capture this Maple Valley family photo session before the weather turned. Love these guys and I love how their session came out.

Here are a few of my favorite photos from their shoot.

Did you know you can follow my Facebook Page at Dawn Potter Photography for sneak peeks and behind the scenes photos? And if you’re interested in scheduling a session please use the Contact Me button in the upper right hand corner for more information.

Maple Valley family photo | issaquah east side family children photographer

Breastfeeding Session at Sunset on the Beach | Seattle baby photographer

October 21, 2015

I’ve seen a lot of breastfeeding session photos circling the internet these past few months. A dear friend of mine in Germany has created a beautiful video highlighting motherhood and breastfeeding and all the love that surrounds it. You can watch her video here. As a mother of four children, all of which I have breastfed, this is a topic near and dear to my heart.

During my trip to San Diego, one of the fellow photographers who I’d met during the workshop I attended in February, had asked if I could capture this special moment for her and her youngest son. We had already planned to meet at the beach to photograph a newborn at sunset so I told her to bring the kids, bring her clothes to change into, and we would make it happen!

The baby we were photographing that evening was a little difficult to settle. Daylight was running out quickly and the sun was setting fast. We only had a few moments to snap these images of her with her son before the sun was gone. I’m so glad we made it a point to do this. Here are my personal favorites from her breastfeeding session.

Potato Sack Pose Behind the Scenes | Seattle – Bellevue newborn baby photographer

October 20, 2015

I get a lot of questions asking me how to do the Potato Sack pose with a newborn baby. A lot of people think it’s super complicated and really hard to do, but truth be told, it’s probably one of the simpler poses when it comes to posing newborns. I’ve recently started incorporating it into almost all of my newborn sessions and I am loving the response I’m seeing from it.

The first step in getting this pose to come together wrapping the baby correctly. I like to lay baby in my lap, fold their legs in toward their belly (think criss-cross) and start wrapping them nice and tight. I make sure to bend their arms at the elbow so that their hands are able to be tucked up beneath their chin. For the potato sack to work, baby needs to be wrapped nice and tight!! After I wrap baby once, I wrap them again… and then again. The third wrap is the only one you see 🙂

The second step is in the set-up. I like to use a long bath towel and roll it up like a tootsie roll and then make a little nest out of it under my posing blanket or flokati rug. This creates a nice little pocket for the baby to sit down into. I then place the baby into that pocket and instruct dad on how to support the baby. If I have done steps one and two properly, dad is merely there to have a hand on the baby as a spotter.

I then snap a photo with dad’s hand supporting baby’s body.

And another with dad’s hand supporting baby’s head.

I overlap the photos together in Photoshop and do a little editing- (this is what is referred to as a composite image.)

And once the photos have been merged together, I add my final edits to the image. Here is the final version of this sweet little babe 🙂

If you’re ready to take your newborn photography to the next level, please consider attending one of our group workshops. 1:1 mentoring is also available. Contact us for details!

Newborn Sibling Session | Issaquah – Renton newborn-baby photographer

October 19, 2015

I absolutely love doing newborn sibling sessions! The connections that you can capture between a big brother or big sister and that brand new little baby that has just joined their family are amazing. It’s true, toddlers tend to be a little less cooperative and for the most part have pretty short attention spans, so any time I’m photographing a newborn sibling session I will make sure to photograph the children first. And every once in a while, big sister or big brother is perfectly content posing for the camera by themselves but has zero interest in posing with the new little one; that’s when I tend to get a little creative.

In this particular newborn sibling session, Annabelle wasn’t too interested in the camera. I was able to capture a few sweet little kisses between her and her baby brother, but not a whole lot of them facing toward the camera. I decided to pull out my little truck prop and see if she had any interest in it. Sure enough, she immediately climbed into the back! I let her explore for about 5 minutes, she continued to climb in and out. A few times, she even glanced up at me. I snapped several photos of her playing on and in the truck and after I knew I had what I needed, she was able to leave the session with her dad while mom stayed behind. At that point, we were able to photograph baby Warren in the truck. Luckily I use photoshop for editing, and as long as I photograph the right components, I’m able to fairly easily put the two photos together later to create one image. This isn’t easy to do if you aren’t intentionally photographing for it, but in this case, I was so I made sure to get it right.

Here are a few of my favorite images from this newborn sibling session, including the composite image of Annabelle and Warren.

**If you are interested in scheduling a newborn session, please email dpotterphotography@gmail.com for more information, or call 206.225.8711

Renton Family Session | Renton – Maple Valley newborn-family photographer

October 17, 2015

This family session… what can I say? These guys were an awesome little trio! Their daughter was hovering right around the 18 month mark which can be a tricky age to photograph sometimes. She started out a little on the shy side, but after some time, she warmed up and came right out of her shell! It was pretty cute watching her point to the doggies in the park and say, “doggie!” When I spoke with momma before the session, she let me know that they hadn’t had any family photos done at all yet. They’ve only been in the state for a few months and weren’t even sure where to go. I was so happy they found me and chose me to capture these special moments for them. Here are a few of my favorites from their outdoor family session.

*If you are interested in booking a family session, you can find more information here.

*Please be sure to follow my Facebook page for up-to-date sneak peeks and behind the scenes!

Maple Valley family photo session | Maple Valley – Eastside family – child photographer

Breastfeeding Session at Sunset on the Beach | Seattle baby photographer

Potato Sack Pose Behind the Scenes | Seattle – Bellevue newborn baby photographer

Newborn Sibling Session | Issaquah – Renton newborn-baby photographer

Renton Family Session | Renton – Maple Valley newborn-family photographer

telephone | (206) 225-8711