Preston, Alicia, Micah and Bella's Portrait Session, Santa Rosa, California

Preston is a friend-of-a-friend (or several, actually), and he was another one of the lucky Portrait Special winners. He wanted a nice portrait of his family - his partner, Alicia (who I actually went to high school with, and who was again a friend-of-friends), and their children, Bella and Micah. We had some beautiful weather and lots of beautiful signs of a Santa Rosa spring - cherry blossoms, bright green grass, and flowering bluebell-thingies in the lawn.

It's rare that the very first shots of the day are some of my favorite, but just look at this sweet little family!



Bella is about 2 and a half, and has the attention of that age. She was SO wonderful about posing for us right away - but that got tired and she spent most of the rest of the afternoon hiding her face. The key to shooting this age (and sometimes adults too!) is just taking a TON of stuff, as well as trying anything you can to distract the subject from their reticence to pose... And I think, all things considered, Bella did fabulously.

Still, I love this shot where everyone's trying to get her to come back:



Micah is such a sweetie pie - very sweet and caring with his little sister. And a total goofball that had me (and, yes, himself) cracking up.





This is one of my favorites - look at those happy faces and the beautiful color!



Since the kids got "over it", I got some lovely shots of the parents:





And Micah could be convinced to pose with his dad:



While I snuck this shot of Bella and Alicia:



Thanks again, you guys! What a great and easy shoot.

Check out the slideshow here.