For a personal and casual look, we seated this family under their newly built pergola.

This year make your family portraits something to remember! Why not consider stepping away from the traditional? Don’t be afraid to branch out, to bring a new element to this years holiday season that could possibly become a new tradition for years to come. Make this year’s holiday portrait unique by following these 3 simple steps:

• Include a personal element in the portrait. Instead of photographing in front of the Christmas tree or holiday decorations, opt to move the picture to a favorite family place. For example: the woods in the back of grandpa’s house, the kids’ favorite park, or somewhere where many fond memories have been made.
• Instead of dressing in traditional colors of red and green (although there’s nothing wrong with those colors!), try blue and white for a cool wintery feel or go with a more classic gold and black scheme. While it can be fun to have everyone wear the same outfit, you can try to show off each family member’s individual personality with outfits they’re comfortable in, yet still coordinate the color scheme to portray the visual message that you are a family.
• Have one of the kids write a special message this year or have everyone sign (you can even include the family pet’s paw-print). You can have the message written on a sign and hold it up for the photo, or you could also have it imprinted in it’s original handwriting on your holiday card.

The most important thing to remember is to have fun with it! Taking a family portrait shouldn’t be stressful but just another fun holiday activity for everyone to enjoy, both as you are shooting and once you get the final results!

Portrait of Sara by Brandon Mercer

If you aren’t comfortable with setting your camera up on a tripod and making your own portraits, we’re always glad to help. You can contact Lori Coleman at lori@lightandink.com to set up a portrait session. You’ll need to hurry though, as dates for the holiday season are booking fast!

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This has been a guest post by Sara Tiberio, the newest member to join the Light+Ink team! Sara is a Junior at my alma mater, RIT, and will be an intern here for the next few months. She will be creating more tips and goodies for you, so leave some feedback for her in the comments here. Or, give her a nice warm welcome if you see her around!

Molly told me she always wanted four children. Two boys and two girls between 2 and 9 years old, how much more perfect could you get? Each has their own personality, but they all share at least one thing in common: they like to play! We took advantage of this gorgeous day and had some fun in their backyard. We climbed trees, threw leaves, raced each other and played with our favorite toys. I took my usual position of step back and watch, allowing me to capture some great interactions between this family of six.

Special thank you to Tim and Molly for inviting me over, and to Megan, Abby, Patrick and Henry for allowing me to capture your energy and playfulness! If you can’t tell, we had a lot of fun with this session! Special thanks to Erin Perrotta for your assistance!

Now, I would like to introduce you to the star of the show, Stella! She is four months old, just learned how to roll over, and is cuter than a button. I had the pleasure of recording her baptism, and then a few days later we met up again at her “crib” (sorry couldn’t resist) to make these portraits. In two hours, I witnessed laughter, tears, shyness, playfulness, snuggles and curiosity. All in a days work for a four month old I love that in just a few hours you can capture such a range of emotion.

Congratulations to the new parents, I can’t wait to watch her grow!

If you prefer this type of candid, photojournalistic photography over the traditional studio experience, give me a call at 585.678.1905 to set up a consultation for your family.

Thanks for looking,
Lori

Happy 90th Mr. C, wishing you 90 more!

Mr. and Mrs. C are some of the nicest people you will ever meet. If you have had anything to do with music in this area in the last 50 years, chances are you may know them! They seem to know everyone… whether they can remember their names or not is another question Back in May, Mr. Cox celebrated 90 years while surrounded by friends and family from all over the globe. I was lucky enough to be there and capture the faces of those children, grandchildren, great grand-children, nieces, nephews, students, neighbors, bandmates, and friends.

Throughout the image-making process, from proofing to ordering to delivery, I was in the Cox home numerous times. Each time Mrs. Cox would pull out a few photos to show me: photos from her past that meant a lot to her. I saw images from the 1920s through 2011 displayed all around her home. This last trip was perhaps the most special. I was bringing them the Photo Book filled with their favorite images from the celebration. As the two of them sat on the couch flipping the pages, I could see tears forming in her eyes. They had lost one of their friends since the party. Another had been diagnosed with Cancer. She pointed to each person and told us all about them.

Then we got to the back, where there is a two page spread of the whole family… all 30 of them! She pointed to two photos on their walls. One looked to be ~15 years old, it was a group photo but was taken before some of the grandkids had been born. Another looked only a handful of years old, it was beautiful, but also was missing some VIPs. Then she looked at the book in her hands and almost hugged it– they were all there, she said.

Wow. The power of photography. I can’t tell you how many times I was thanked for making this book, but now its my turn to say thank you. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Cox for showing me the true power and purpose of photography. I loved every one of our meetings and seeing the photos that are important to you. Thank you for allowing me to add to that collection. I wish you many more years of turning the pages and quizzing each other on the names of everyone present!

Mr. C's favorite color

Candid images of the four children

Mr. & Mrs. C

The Whole Family

Meet Brandt: Two years old, energetic, athletic and oh so loved! Here is easily my favorite photo of the day, Brandt showing us his butterfly catching skills!

But lets go back to the beginning, there is some seriously cute stuff that happened before we got to this part of the session. First, I was welcomed in the door to an aerial show of Brandt showing me how high he could jump. He is one tough cookie, but the dog was not amused.

After taking it down a notch, we had a few nice moments with mom and dad.

And we ended with a nice walk at the Seneca Meadows Wetland Preserve.

Thank you guys for inviting me to spend a lovely morning with you. I have many more photos I can’t wait to share with you!

Recently, Anne brought Marc up to New York from their home in Florida to meet more of the family. While they were here, I stole them away to make some engagement portraits. We had a great time walking along the canal on a gorgeous summer day. When we finished up, Anne mentioned wanting some custom Save-the-Date cards to mail out. I asked about her theme, and some of the keywords that came up were: rustic, vintage, and nature. So I designed some cards for her with the concept of nature, and decided the idea of writing their names on a tree would be a perfect fit for them. Don’t worry– no trees were harmed in the making of this card! (The effect was added digitally.)

Enough of my rambling, here are the finished cards and some of my favorite photographs from their session! Enjoy!

Front and Back of Save the Date Postcards

Without further ado, meet [m] and [k]!

The above photos describe the session pretty well, [k] was alert and ready for his closeup, while [m] just wanted to sleep! Below is my favorite of the session: a quiet moment between mother and daughter.

If you enjoy these photographs, let us know by leaving a comment. If you are interested in scheduling your own Signature Session, give Lori a call at 585-678-1905.

Thanksgiving would not be complete without _____________.

You must be a Facebook fan to enter and win. Entry deadline is November 23, winner will be announced on the 24th, just in time for Thanksgiving! For complete rules and to enter, visit the Light+Ink Facebook Page.

Thank you, and good luck!