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  • "Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts, and we are changed forever."

    We specialize in creating portraits of those relationships that have left footprints on YOUR heart, warming your home and your heart with memories that last a lifetime.

  • Baby Steps Newborn and Maternity Portraits

  • Families and Relationships Portraits

  • Pawprints on the Heart - Portraits with Your Dog

This Photograph is Known Nation Wide! – Our most popular newborn photograph ever…

 

Without a doubt, this is our Most Popular Newborn Photograph Ever…

Every day, when I look at the statistics about how many people visited our site, and what brought them there, I see multiple searches for “Baby in Fire Helmet” or something similar.

EVERY DAY!!

And these searches come from all over the country, not just here from Salem.

It’s also been repinned a number of times on Pinterest – even before I pinned it there myself.  Folks found it on the web, and loved it.

So I thought I’d repost it to make it easy to find.

What makes it so unique?

Newborn baby in a fire helmet

When we start a family with the Baby Steps program, the very first step is to find out as much as we can about their family. What can we included as emotionally important elements when we create the pictures of their newborn.

Mason’s daddy is a volunteer firefighter with Marion County Fire District, and very proud of it.

So it only made sense to include this aspect of their family in what we created.

You see, what we create is CUSTOM baby pictures, like this one. Or the photographs of the other Mason we posted several posts back, who’s daddy is a winemaker.

Custom baby photography means that what we create for you is DESIGNED; it’s PERSONALIZED to your family.

That’s just we like to do things.

Take a look around on the web. You’ll see some cute baby photography, but too often they all look the same. Use some studio props, a cute little hat (that belongs to the studio, not the baby), and there you go.

So, if you’re looking for a more individual approach, then check out our Baby Steps program.

And then call us at 503-588-0902, and schedule YOUR consultation. We’ll work as hard to individualize your newborn photographs as we did little Mason’s.

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Are You Lucky Enough To Still Have Your Dad Around?

(I originally posted this two years ago, but came across it this morning and thought I’d post it again, since Father’s day is coming up.)

What you see here is one of only two professional photographs I have of my dad.  This was taken in 1943, and the other portrait I have of him was taken about two years before he died in 1983.  He was suffering from cancer in that one, and looked pretty gaunt, but I still treasure it because it’s all I have.

My dad was my mentor, my adviser, my role model.  In my teen and college years, we worked together; times I treasure to this day.  He taught me much of allowed me to become the person I am today.  I miss him every day, and he’s been gone for 30 years now.

Yet sadly, I have only a few snapshots from early in my life that show the two of us together, and NOTHING that really illustrates the relationship that grew between us as I grew up.

I can’t change that now, no matter how much I wish I could.

What about you?  What do you have that celebrates your dad, and the importance he has in your life?

If you’re like me, and have nothing, maybe it’s time you scheduled something for your family.  Call us at 503-588-0902

Remember, professional family portraits aren’t expensive; they’re PRICELESS!.  And they only grow more valuable with time.

 

 

A Father’s Day Remembrance

My dad passed away in 1983, and he had the audacity to do it on my wife’s birthday.

He’s now been gone for almost almost 27 years, but I feel his presence with me every day.  I feel him in my heart, I see him in my eyes, I hear him in my voice, but most of all I see him in my children and my grandchildren.

Kennedy, my 15 month old grandaughter has moments when she looks exactly like his baby pictures. It can be a little startling.   There are also times when she makes the same expressions as my mother.  We refer to it as the “grandma Phyllis face”.  It’s a small source of joy to see them living on in these little glimmers three generations downline.

My dad was my advisor, and in some ways still is today.  In 1997, when I was making the difficult decision to jump out of the corporate world, and start the studio, I was sitting in our family room, pondering the decision, and found myself getting up and walking towards the telephone to call him.  At that time, he’d been gone  about 14 years.

They may not be with us physically, but I’m firmly convinced that we always feel the presence of those we love who’ve departed this earth.  They live on within us in many ways, and we each find our own way to make the memories of them a part of who we are.

Happy father’s day dad.  I love you, and I miss you, but know that because you were here, you made the world a better place.  You left your Footprints on my heart.

 

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A Very Fine 2012 Vintage – Baby, that is. Newborn Pictures Salem Oregon

Meet little Mason.  His parents are winemakers, producing  their very first bottling this year. And a fine vintage I’m sure it will be.

And in the middle of all that, they produced their very first child.  2012 is proving to be a very good year indeed.

Mason came a number of weeks early, but as you can see, hes a healthy little boy.  These are a few of the newborn pictures we created when he was about 10 days old.

A fine wine only gets better and more valuable with age.  The same is true of baby portraits and newborn pictures.  You love them now, but they only become more and more valuable as time passes and the baby becomes a toddler, then a child, then a teenager, and then an adult, and this absolutely wonderful time in your life is but a distant and fading memory.

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Pardon our dust, but

We’re changing the design of our website, and the only way to do it is to have it live while we make the changes.

We’re re-arranging the links, adding new content, and overall providing more information on the subject of family and relationship portraits.

The whole process will take a couple of weeks, but we think it’s going to be worth it in the end.

So thanks for your patience while we work to make visiting this site a better and more informative experience.

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It Was a Beautiful Day for Family Portraits at the Oregon Coast…

Warm, sunny – simply gorgeous – at least for us humans

But not the easiest kind of day for photography.  Bright sunlight makes it harder to find a good place to work, and balancing the light on the subjects with the bright light in the backgrounds is quite a challenge.  Clouds make it much easier – that beautiful soft, wrap-around light that we photographers call “the great Pacific Northwest softbox”.

The Martin family was her on vacation from their home in San Diego.  They travel extensively, and  have a family portrait created somewhere in the world nearly every year; a family that truly appreciates the power of a beautifully designed and created portrait.  And this year, the decision was to be photographed at the Oregon Coast.  Although they own a vacation home in Neskowin, they’ve never had their family photographed there, so this was the year.

And wouldn’t you know it; in a month of rainy and cloudy weather, and soft light,  we actually chose the one day that the sun was shining brightly.

So we searched for a great place to create their portrait.  And we found it.

Cindy had already scoped out a setting in the hills above their home which gave a beautiful vista of the ocean and beach to the north.  As it turned out, it was the perfect place.  We looked for a spot in the shade, so we could properly control the light on them and balance it with the background, and after a bit of searching we found it.

Then, after pruning some of the scrub-brush that was in our way, we set them in place, balanced the lights, made them laugh and smile, and created this – one of a number of images from their session.

Even starting with a wonderful family, good clothing selection and a great setting, the image benefited from quite a bit of enhancement and retouching in Photoshop.  That’s part of the magic.  Only about 50% of the work is done at the time the shutter is released.  The rest of what a good portrait artist sees in their head is in the work that’s done back in the office.

With the colors in this image, it’s going to look INCREDIBLE as a large gallery wrap canvas.  There’s something about the gallery wraps that simply make the colors look so rich.  Maybe it’s the printing technology, maybe it’s the canvas texture, but images printed this way seem to come to life, warming the homes and the hearts of those who display them in their homes.

We schedule a number of beach trips each year to create portraits of families, of seniors, of children.

For us Oregonions, there’s something special about the beach, so we make available a number of opportunities each year.  If you’d like to take advantage of  one, give us a call at 503-588-0902.

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