Spotlight on Cole...

Awhile back after a discussion with my mom friends during our weekly playgroup about professional photos of our wee ones I began to feel guilt lurking in the parental lobe of my brain. I had never signed up at any of the typical venues for the 3, 6, 9, 12 month photo packages. Dave and I have taken hundreds of candids with our beloved digital camera and up until now I had felt confident that we captured many of the moments, expressions and personality of our lil guy!

That said, I began to feel that maybe it was time to have Cole sit (HA HA!!) for a session especially since he has so much character and had reached his first milestone birthday. My hope was twofold, that having someone else photograph Cole would reveal a special alternative to the everyday photos I was used to taking AND in the process it would quell the silly guilt I was experiencing for not previously shelling out the cash for quarterly formal images.

With this on my TO DO list, and as always with a new endeavor I did my due diligence, researched several studios and found a photographer whose portfolio was in sync with my vision of more artistic and random photos of Cole rather than the posed versions that were common for his age group.

I was apprehensive that Cole would not be a cooperative subject as he rarely remains in one place for more than two seconds and prefers to meander when in a new environment. Surprisingly despite Cole being quite a crab apple and clinging to me like a monkey for the first fifteen minutes, Jennifer and her wonderful staff who were familiar with the unpredictable nature of an independent toddler managed to get Cole comfortable and thus he was able to show his many faces. Ultimately though Cole controlled the shoot and did what he wanted when he wanted. As you can see he is STANDING on the bench rather than sitting which he hasn't done since he began crawling. So I crouched off to the side so I could react if he teetered too close to the edge and chased him around most of our hour with our photog!