There seems to be a stigma around studio portraits. I get it. I feel the same way. The last thing I want is to force a child to sit still, in one spot, and smile. And as kids get older and are more willing to sit, the smiles become more and more forced - totally fake - and not what I'm looking for in the end! At all.

But there is also a lot of value in a clean, simple portrait.

The kind of image that shows the face clearly. The expression. The look. The features. All those things that will be so different a year from now. Kids change so fast. They go from a baby to a toddler to a first-grader before you have a chance to really register what's happening.. because, let's face it, you're just trying to survive parenthood those first few years. It's important to pause, for just a second, and have a record of that smile, that lost tooth, and all the silliness, don't you think?

And then, I get to photograph siblings. Molly and Jackson are so much alike and also so different. The whole point of the photo session is to have fun, too. I want their personalities to come out. I want them to feel comfortable. To be silly. Because they're silly kids! And that's AWESOME.