Happy Leap Year Day! And, in case you didn’t know this is the day that women are supposed to propose to men. So, I hope a few of you get engaged today.

If you haven’t had your engagement session yet, now is the time to schedule one. And if you are a little uncertain about why to have an engagement session or just don’t know what to expect I’ve tried to give a few tips and some reasoning on why I think it is important.

Okay, the WHY–The engagement session is very useful to me. Engagement sessions give me an opportunity to learn more about you as a couple, an opportunity to see your personality which gives me some insight into what to expect at your wedding, and a chance to educate you on how I photograph.

Don’t WORRY–the engagement session will not just be recreating those traditional hand on cheek style images of the past.

WHERE should the session take place? I would suggest that you pick a couple of meaningful spots for us to visit. Perhaps this would be where you met, where you first became engaged, or just places that you enjoy going to together. We can start in one location and move on from there. Think of how you enjoy spending time together, what do you do for fun, or for romance? What are your favorite spots around town–the art museum, SU, a park, downtown, skiing?

WHAT will happen during the session I hope will be a bit of a collaborative effort. Yes, it will be a bit more posed than your wedding day, but it shouldn’t feel that posed. Think of it as a date with a picture happy friend tagging along. It will be my job to make the session comfortable for you, and your job to fill me in on who you are as a couple. I hope to make you comfortable enough to get some images of you showing authentic emotion and expression.

And the IMAGES, well there are all sorts of things you can do with the images. They can be used on invitations, in your sign-in book ( I can help with this), or just tucked away to look back on later in life. The images should help to remind you of of this time in your life, your likes and interests, and the place that you were in life when you decided to get married.

The perfect time for engagement sessions in early evening, about two hours before sunset. Once the session is over this is a good time to sit down over a drink or dinner and discuss the details of the wedding day with me. See you soon.

What a treat for a snowy day! This little thing was all smiles and fun sunshine. And I can’t help smiling while I edit the pictures. Can you resist smiling at this?

It was so special to get to visit back with this little cutie and give her a session all to herself. She is the youngest of three kids and just turned 9 months. She was teething and generally only feeling great if mama was holding her or very close by, but sometimes you just need to have those special pictures with mom. It doesn’t hurt that mom was very photogenic. Take a peek.

Every once in awhile I like to play around with borders. It reminds me of my old days in the darkroom where we used to print our negatives with borders to prove that we did all of our image composing “in camera” instead of cropping later in the darkroom. I was such a purist! Here are a few of my kids out enjoying just enough snow for some sledding.

This four month old was more soulful than smiley during our session–although I did capture some adorable smiles. While I was photographing A on the bed I happened to glance his parents soaking up his total cuteness and quick changed my view to get them in the image. They tried to scoot out of the way, but I assured them that it was okay that they stay.

And I love the image of him in this handmade cradle, so that even if he never really slept in it it will be remembered.

As my first busy wedding season approaches I have been doing lots of preparing to make sure that everything runs smoothly and that my clients get the images that they expect to get from me on there wedding day. I am really excited about attending the largest Professional Wedding Photographers convention in March where I will be attending lots of Master Classes. Today, I came across an article written by a photographer that I admire on how to help your wedding photographer out so that they will get the images you have hired them to get. You can find the article HERE, and I recommend that all of my wedding clients give it a glance. Happy Reading.

Do all kids love to vacuum, or more specifically the vacuum? This little guy did and insisted that I take his portrait with the vacuums. I was only too happy to capture this adorable image. His sister was just as cute, although didn’t make any demands for specific portraits. I will have to share some more of these cuties soon.