• Family Portraits Celebrating the Relationships In Your Life

    Some People Come Into Our Lives, Leave Footprints On Our Hearts and We're Never The Same.
    And it's these people that we celebrate in our lives, for even when they're not with us, they've had an indelible impact on who and what we are. These are the relationships that make our lives complete; that give it meaning, and a sense of purpose.

    This site is dedicated to these relationships. It started as a new emphasis for our portrait studio, Encore! Portrait Design, but the more the idea began to bloom, the more it became clear that we also needed to share stories that our friends, clients, and even those we haven’t yet met might like to share with others about those that have left footprints on THEIR hearts.

    If you have a touching story to share about someone who left their footprints (or pawprints) on your heart, click on STORIES in the menu to learn how.

    Then check back periodically to see what new stories have been posted. Or follow this site on Facebook or Twitter. The links are below.

    For those who would like to capture the relationships in their lives in what we call Visual Hugs, we offer the storytelling portraiture you see featured on this website. family portraits, couples portraits, engagement portraits, wedding photography, maternity portraits, newborn portraits, Generations portraits, Brothers and Sisters, - the specific combination doesn't matter. What does matter is that you want to keep these people close, regardless of what the future brings.

    No matter how time and distance separate us from those special people in our lives, we can help you keep them forever close, displayed prominently in your home where you can feel their closeness every day.

    To learn more about this site, and it’s inspiration, visit the about page.

Happy Birthday Dad

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Happy Birthday Dad

My father would have been 97 years old last week.  He was only 70 when he died.

I got to thinking about him last night, and realized how much I’d love to have just one more conversation with him.   There’s so many things I’d like to ask him, to learn about his life; things I never thought to ask when I had the chance, questions I’ll now never have answered, things I’ll never know.

I’d love to show him how wonderfully his granddaughters grew up, and introduce him to his great grandchildren.  I regularly see both bit of him and my mother in their faces.

But that’s not something I can do. 

 I can only wish.

But it makes me want to pass on this word of advise.

Those we love will not always be here, especially parents and grandparents.  I know life is busy, but take the time while you have the chance to do the things I wish I had done more of.  Learn about their history, their lives.  It gives you more of a sense of where you came from.

But most of all, tell them you love them, and do it often, because there will come a day when you can’t.

Happy Birthday Dad.  I love you.

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Metamorphosis – Celebrating the transition from child to young adult. | children's photography

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Memamorphosis – celebrating the transition between childhood and young adulthood with a very special children’s photography program.

“Who Are You?” I asked Faye, when we sat down to plan out what we were going to do and how we were going to photographer her.

“That’s the Trouble.  I don’t know who I am” was her answer.

How indicative of this time of life.  Middle school, and puberty.  Everything is changing.

  • Their bodies
  • Their self-image
  • Their friends
  • Their social structure
  • Their relationship with their parents

It’s a challenging time for both child and parent, yet it’s one that should be celebrated as well, for this is the beginning of their preparation to become independent, strong, confident individuals, not just somebody’s child.

It’s a time of developing an adult size image of who they are and who they are becoming.

Our Metamorphosis session is designed to both capture this transistion for you, the parents, and to help them feel really good about the changes by creating a work of art book featuring great photographs of this time in their lives.

Faye was photographed three different times between the time she was twelve and thirteen, and we then designed the Metamorphosis book using these photographs.

You don’t even know here, but you can easily see the changes, the transition from child to young adult depicted throughout the book.

Just as with our other sessions, we plan out these sessions to capture the essence of who each of these young people are, and each are different and unique.

Then, each book is individually designed, using not only the photographs, but quotes, sayings, poems or any other material that’s appropriate in telling the story.

The Metamorphosis package includes up to four hours of photography, in three or four sessions, and a completed book for $999.

If you have a young person on the verge of transistion, call the studio today and set up a consultaiton to explore the possibilities – 503-588-0902, or click on the contact form above.  We’ll get together and chat, and then begin to tell the story of your young human becoming.

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Norm and Susan’s Wedding Album | wedding photography

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We did Susan’s Senior Pictures back in 2000, so when it came time for her to get married, it was only natural that we’d also do her wedding photography.

Norm and Susan got married on a sunny, relatively warm day in early March at a fun little farm east of Woodburn.

Winter weddings can have a real visual charm, and this one was no exception.  We even had a little Saloon to work with, so we played with that them quite a bit.  I especially like the “saloon girl” look of some of the brides pictures and of those with the bridesmaids.

You see so many summer wedding albums posted, I thought it would be great to post an example of a winter wedding.

If you want to know more about our wedding photography, check out our studio website – www.encorephotography.com.  There’s more examples and a lot of information available there.

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