Family portraits

On Saturday, we had our first-ever professional family portraits made. Yes, I had previously attempted those mall portraits when stateside, but unless the subject was only a tiny kiddo, the result was pretty yuck. Quality professional portraits are super-pricey, and I often find I can beat the image by doing it myself. For family photos, we usually just don't.

I kept seeing work by Blue Lily crop up on blogs I enjoy. Most people shared because they will shoot a video during your photos as well, and it's really cute behind-the-scenes type stuff. The images are great, very natural, not overly contrived and the color boosting is fantastic. Back in September, I read on NieNie that Blue Lily would be coming to Australia, so I signed us up!

On Saturday afternoon, we drove out to Roleystone in the Perth Hills for our shoot in an orchard (orchards seem to be Blue Lily's signature scene). Of course, both girls fell asleep in the car. Crankiness reigned supreme. Ellie was soon coaxed out of it by Wendy's expertise, but the first half of our shoot was somehow done with a completely unamused and uncooperative Stephanie. Eventually, Wendy won her over too. She was genius! She lay flat on her tummy in the tall grass, popping up with a silly face and making puppy noises to get their attention and giggles...worked every time! We had a lot of fun. It will be hard to wait 2-3 weeks for the finished work!

We have to laugh that the portraits will be keeping it real. First, there's the impossible to hide cranky factor. Then, there's wardrobe. Both girls were dressed just fine until Markus told them we were going to have photos made. Then, they went and changed. Ellie inexplicably donned winter wear and Stephanie put on her purple fairy dress that she has never before wanted to wear out of the house and now would not take off. We did make Ellie change back to what she had on before (it's just too hot for pants and long sleeves!), though we did let her wear her chosen outfit in the car. There was no reasoning with Stephanie, and we figured we didn't need to anyway. None of us dressed up (though I did curl my hair), the girls quickly discarded their shoes, and it's all a good reflection of us on a normal summer day here in Perth (except we're in an orchard, where we wouldn't normally be).