Family Pet Photography

I love taking family portraits.  No two families are ever the same, and that certainly keeps my job interesting!  And perhaps because my own little furry babies are such an integral part of my family, I am always excited when a client wants to include his or her pets as part of a family session.  

I recently met Ms. A, who was fostering three sweet puppies for POODLE RESCUE HOUSTON until they were old enough to be adopted.  She asked me to do a photo session for her so she would have pictures of her foster pups as well as her own dogs; and I was more than happy to oblige!  So, I traveled to her home where I took both posed and candid photos.  These are a few of my favorites:

First, we have the "family portrait" where I managed to get everyone to look at me at the same time - no small feat!

Here are a couple of photos of the adorable foster pups, who have since been adopted and are now living in their forever homes:

This is little Monique, who is clearly the independent one of the trio!

And here are roly-poly Christopher and sweet Chanelle.  Aren't they adorable?!

Next up are a couple of photos of Ms. A and her "grown-up" babies:

We wanted to include casual, every day photos.  So Ms. A. sat down and played with her four-legged family members while I took pictures.  I love the results!

Look at the love and devotion on this girl's face for her human mama!

Remember, a family doesn't have to be human.  Families are not just made up of people related to you by blood or marriage.  Families are comprised of those you love, who love you back.  To me, that includes pets and lifelong friends.  When is the last time you had family pictures made?

This Happened...

These last couple of months have sure been busy for me!  For those of you wondering where I have been...this happened...

My daughter Lou and my son-in-law recently purchased their very first home.  It has a great floor plan and is in a wonderfully established neighborhood.  But, it is an older home that needed a little love.  And I have been helping give it some TLC, in the form of sanding and painting walls and, currently, taking kitchen cabinet doors off and sanding, deglossing, and repainting them.  It has been a lot of fun, and I have been so happy to be able to help them.  

I also just finished directing my first play at one of our local community theaters - which I absolutely loved doing!  We had sold out performances almost every weekend for five weeks and got great reviews.  I definitely can't wait to do that again!

But, my favorite thing - my very favorite thing lately - has been growing my little photography business.  I was recently asked by a good friend of mine, who also happens to be a photographer, to take pictures of his three daughters.  Like many children, they don't always want to smile for their dad.  So I was recruited to take some headshots and generally updated photos, and the results were wonderful!  

Without further ado, here are a few of my favorites of the three beautiful, vivacious Rule sisters...

The oldest insisted she was not photogenic.  I beg to disagree!  She is so pretty, and her personality clearly shines through in these pictures!

The middle daughter is quieter - a little more reflective.  She knew exactly what she wanted to try with her photos, so I just followed her and clicked away.

And the youngest, she just wanted me to finish taking her photos so she could run around in the grass and do cartwheels.  But she did manage to stay still long enough to get the shots her family wanted.  She is such a little cutie pie!

Like my photos?  If you do, I would love it if you would "like" my Facebook page - KCMckee Photography, which can be found HERE.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Be You

The Huntress - she's got her own style.  It's quirky, it is definitely anime-inspired, (these days it is often a little pouty-faced), and it's all her own.  Some days she is a rock star, and other days she is the ultimate teenage drama queen.  There may be a lot she still has to figure out in life, but she knows who she is, and that is a huuuggge start!  

I took her out to do a fun little photo shoot recently, and I got a memory card full of photos that capture her in all her pouty rocker/anime glory perfectly.  I knew I needed papers that captured the love, optimism, and hope I have for her - so I went digging through my stash for my HEIDI SWAPP stuff, which turned out to fit the bill perfectly.  I primarily used the Mixed Company line, which had the clean, simple graphics I wanted.  

To help me get my mojo kick-started, I also used the SKETCHABILITIES SKETCH #115.  I know a lot of ladies on the Sketchablities design team take a more vintage, mixed media approach to the sketches.  However, I think they work well for any style!

I love the way my layout turned out!  I was a little worried, since I haven't scrapbooked in so long, that I had forgotten how to glue together two pieces of paper, much less create a complete layout.  But, I guess it is just like that old saying about riding a bicycle...(thank goodness).

Here are a couple of close-ups:

A lot of layering and some symbolism, too...

My girl is a superstar to me, so of course I had to include a star and then, for good measure, layer it with another star.  I guess that makes her a super superstar...

Here are a few other photos from our little shoot that I imagine I will be creating layouts around in the near future:

Christmas Day the Instagram Way

Hello everyone!I hope you had a joyful Christmas, full of good memories-in-the-making.  We had a very hectic-busy-crazy-actionpacked pre-Christmas weekend - with children coming home to roost for the Christmas holiday.  Lou and her guy came breezing through our front door first, all tanned and relaxed from their honeymoon cruise.  Then all the other his, mine, and ours slowly trickled in until we had children and pets and noise and activity filling every single nook and cranny of Casa de Chaos.  That picture at the top of this blog?  It's missing two working sons, some crazy yapping doggies, a couple psycho cats - and a partridge in a pear tree.  I baked, and last minute shopped, and wrapped gifts, and sang Christmas carols, and even sang in the church choir on Christmas Eve. 

 

Why am I telling you all this?  Because I want you to see how someone who LIVES for scrapbooking and photographing those special moments could have been so sleep deprived (and maybe a teeny-tiny bit high on sugar from all the "test bites" I had to take) that I forgot to check my camera battery - on the main camera, on the good point-and-shoot camera, and on the back-up point-and-shoot.  And guess which camera had a completely dead battery Christmas morning?  If you guessed not just one but all three, you would be correct!

But, hey, it was Christmas morning - and I was happy and all of my family was happy.  So rather than stress about it - or attempt to make everyone hold off on opening gifts until a battery charged ('cuz you know that wasn't going to happen) - I whipped out my phone and Instagrammed all the highlights. And that was okay. 

I got the new son-in-law happily modeling his new boots...

 

...while wearing the "very manly" pajama pants (with images of doggies wearing antlers) that just happened to match his father-in-law's and brother-in-law's pajama pants (courtesy of the BEST mom in the world a/k/a ME!)

 

 

Don't worry, the hubster wasn't upset in the least about wearing matching pajama pants (because, hey, they were "manly" pajama pants, after all).  But I think he was a very teeny little bit put out that now he has two people in the family who are taller than he is.  See?  Look at his feet.  He is standing on his tippy-toes because he wants so badly to be the tallest!!!

Then there was Jesse - who has the best sense of humor.  And, apparently, a thing for my Kalliebeth's sparkly, glittery hat.

 

He r-e-a-l-l-y likes to include himself in pictures.  Not a shy bone in that boy's body.  Can you tell?

 

This was the first year that the Childe got more clothes than toys for Christmas.  Considering the fact that she was trying to wear everything all at once, I don't think she minded too much.  What do you think?

 

Like her big sister, she likes sparkly things, too.  Fortunately, Jesse drew the line at trying on her sparkly skirt - but I suspect it was only because the skirt was too small to fit him properly!

 

Even my big girls let me get a pic of them in their matching pajamas without grumbling One.Single.Time.  It was truly a day of Christmas miracles - ha!

 

 

After a few hours of festivities and feasting Christmas morning, many of the adult kids had to start heading back to their homes or off to see other relatives.  Of course, I made sure that I snapped "just one more pic" before each of them left.

 

 

Until finally, finally, only the youngest two birdies who haven't yet flown the nest were left.  They were in their rooms, quietly playing with their new loot.  I turned around and the hubster was clearly "resting his eyes" for a minute. (Notice the little ball of fur squinched down next to him - apparently one of our doggies needed to rest her eyes, too!)

 

 

...and with that, I finally sat down, took a deep breath for the first time in days, and closed my own eyes for a minute or two.

 

I will be back with new projects in a few days, so stay tuned!  Until then, hoping your Christmas was all that you dreamed and wishing you a Happy New Year - full of peace, love, and crafting! 

Happy Birthday, Baby!

Today, the baby of my little brood turns 12.  Hard to believe it's been that long since she made her impatient entry into the world at the crack of dawn - two weeks before her due date because she couldn't stand to wait a moment longer.  She had things to do!  And she hasn't slowed down even once ever since.

I have a fun project that I will be sharing with you on Thursday, the 14th, featuring this child on one of our recent walks.  It has a quick video tutorial, and I can't wait to show it to you!  Until then, I will leave you with a few of my favorite photos from our walk which will be making a re-appearance in my project.

Happy Sunday everyone!  Hope it's a good one!