I resolve to: Finally get a good family picture
No one ever says “I wish I didn’t have so many pictures of my family”. Because, really, that would be just plain crazy. Who out there doesn’t want beautiful images of their family showcasing their personalities and the love you have for each other? So, why not make a change this year and finally schedule that family photo sitting you’ve been putting off?
This past Fall we were lucky enough to win a family portrait session from Alecia Smith Photography at the Pacific Northwest Blogger Meetup organized by the lovely Mandy {Harper’s Happenings} and beautiful Chelsea {The Paper Mama} and I was incredibly excited to get some professional pictures taken of all of us. As in, really, really excited.
Admittedly, we have a lot of pictures around here since I’ve always got my camera at the ready, but we have very few pictures of the 4 of us. Like 10 pictures, total, and in two of those I’m blinking. While we’ve done the mall portrait studio in the past with its boring backgrounds and its 20 minute timeslot, doing something like hiring a professional photographer to shoot a family sitting was really exciting.
We got to choose everything down to the location, the time {so we could account for naps, drive time, etc} and date and we could design our shoot any way we wanted. Alecia was really easy going and seemed down for just about anything, so I googled an area and scoped it out the day of and in doing so we found this rustic log cabin tucked away in the center of Tukwila, WA. Instead of going with a Christmas-y theme like I had originally planned, at the last minute I just chose some fun “fall themed” outfits that had enough color in them that they would look good on a Christmas card, but wouldn’t look funny hanging all year round and Alecia just ran with that theme from there.
The sitting itself was also really laid back and fun, unlike many of those mall sittings we’ve done in the past that take bribery and tears before you get one image that you all don’t look goofy in. Alecia didn’t try to force poses and she basically let our kids run wild as she chased after them with a camera, something I love because I really just want to capture who they are right now and document this stage fully. I figure we will eventually have enough control over a family sitting that all of us are looking in the same direction at the – gasp – same time, so now’s the time when we should get the really fun ones of us laughing and enjoying ourselves, even if they aren’t your typical family shots.
After the shoot with Alecia was over, I couldn’t wait for the picture reveal so we could pick some shots to frame and send out to family. When the pictures arrived via her secure viewing site, I loved each and every one of them. Honestly, the hardest part was narrowing it down to our favorites and then which images we wanted as part of our sitting package.
It took us a while but finally we narrowed it down and found the images we couldn’t live without and then we marked them as favorites and sent them off to her. We debated for a while about whether we wanted to add pictures to the sitting since we could have always purchased more for her reasonable rates, but in the end we decided that we want to do another sitting with her in the spring and we’d get some extra pictures then. Because wouldn't a spring Seattle photo sitting be simply gorgeous?
If you are dreading family pictures or putting them off because they just seem so daunting, I would highly recommend just making an appointment with Alecia Smith Photography. I was so happy I had finally scheduled a family sitting {even without waiting to lose all the baby weight, for my son’s stitches to fully heal, or for better coordinated outfits, etc} and will never look at the gorgeous pictures of this day and feel anything but happy that we made it happen. I loved it so much that I’m going to try and do a 6 month sitting from now on... I just can’t think of a better way to document all the amazing milestones coming up!
Check out all of Alecia's amazing work at http://aleciasmith.com/ {you can even sneak peek our sitting right from her home page!]
Who wants to win a photography package from Alecia Smith Photography? Perfect for Mother's Day, maternity, family shoot, you name it!
Here's what you get in your $325 Photo Package:
-1 hour on location session for up to 4 people {additional persons can be added $30 each}
-A private 30 day online viewing and ordering gallery
-Fifteen professionally enhanced digital image files
-Session location to be within 20 miles of zip code 98023 {wiling to travel, mileage fees apply}
-Session is to take place before May 31, 2012
To Enter: Visit AleciaSmith.com and let me know what kind of shoot you'd like to plan with her
And, as always, there are extra entries available! {Please leave a separate comment for each completed}
1 Extra Entry - Like Alecia Smith Photographer on Facebook
1 Extra Entry - Post on your Facebook wall about the giveaway {http://t.co/atVlCHyb} and tag Alecia Smith Photographer and R&R on Facebook
2 Extra Entries {per method} - Follow Rave & Review! Subscribe by RSS feed, Subscribe by email, become a fan of R&R on Facebook or add R&R to your blogroll or sidebar.
1 Extra Entry {daily} - Twitter. Simply tweet the following after following us both:
Seattle #Giveaway! Win a photo sitting for your family {$325 value}! Enter to win @RaveAndReview http://t.co/atVlCHyb
2 Extra Entries - Blogger Bonus. Blog about this giveaway linking back to this post and leave an address where I can find your writeup
1 Extra Entry - Comment love. Enter any of my other Giveaways and/or comment on any non-giveaway post!
On February 14th at 11:59pm PST a winner will be drawn, announced here and notified via email. Winner will have 48 hours to contact me or a new winner will be chosen. Must be willing to travel to Seattle area - or to pay Alecia to travel to you.
All opinions remain 100% ours and no form of monetary compensation was received in exchange for this very Rave Review.
