#familyminis

[lastminutemama]

A windy day in Minnesota. The usual.

I truly believe that last weekend was just a glimpse of how cold it’s going to be this winter here in Minnesota. It was brutal. Twenty-five mile mph winds at 22 degrees. So you can imagine how chilled to the bone it was. The Everson family  put on their think MN skin and battled the icy temps with me. Here are a few sneak peek photos of their adorable family!

Talk aout CUTE! The kiddos were so excited when I said “Okay! Let’s wrap ourselves in a blanket!” It totally worked. The kids were so excited to wrap up in a warm blanket. 

We were at the St. Peter Arboretum back in the trails area and nabbed a spot with a few trees that still had some colorful leaves on the trees and a beautiful blanket of fallen leaves scattered across the ground. It made for the perfect backdrop! 

We ran and ran some more to keep those kiddos warm! I remember it was time to switch locations and I thankfully had those blankets and gave them to the parents to block the kids from the wind. We sped walked down through the grass and into the trail and I was holding my gear and when I went to put it down, my hands were so frozen stiff I could hardly click my buttons on my camera! Oops! My mistake for not being prepared for MN weather! Either way, the shoot went really well and I am so happy this family hung in there with me. Wind and all, it was a fabulous day! 

Cait

[lastminutemama]

Check out this wonderful family of four!

These past two weekends have been pretty busy for me. I have had a wonderful time shooting my fall minis and they all came out so great. Most days I really lucked out with perfect weather. Even when it wasn’t so perfect, we all still managed to snap some great shots - with 25 mph icy winds. Yikes! 

I had been diligently working on editing all of these photos as fast as I could, but with some ups and downs our dog is going through right now, I had to slow down a little bit to spend some extra special quality time with my big guy. But I am happy to say I finally have a cute sneak peek to show you guys and am so thrilled with how the entire album turned out.

Talk about photogenic right?! This picture is always so fun to have families try because the kids get to stand a little bucket and balance! It always makes for great laughs and gets the kids to become more engaged and get them excited about “saying cheeeeeeeeeese” which is my all time favorite saying during a session. After adjusting the blanket and the kids figuring out whose foot goes where and the parents lovely snuggled up holding them safely, I captured this PERFECT moment for them. 

p.s. Thanks to this Threshold by Target blanket for helping me create these picture perfect moments. This blanket has endured 7 mini sessions with kids and dogs stomping on it, wind whipping it every direction, getting sat on and stuffed back into my prop bucket for the next session. 

This was probably one of my favorite moments of the entire shoot. I LOVE when the kids really get into it and show off their goofy sides. I’m all for a everyone-smiles-perfectly picture, but I am actually obsessed with candids. I feel like they really show the energy and momentum of each shoot. These two loved the camera and were not shy in the slightest! Which of course made my job about a million times easier. I had a few tough cookies that didn’t want to smile and you know what, thats okay! Every session is different and I have just learned over the course of my photography career that you just have to go with the flow. Especially if there are kids involved, like... young toddlers. They run the show!! Not me! It’s all about: where do they want to go? What do they want to do? Do they want to be held or run around? How can I incorporate the parents?

9.5/10 I have no problem staying on my toes and rolling with the punches. So when these two were just the most ideal subjects, I felt myself relax juuuuuuuuust a little more. I then just get to sit back and click my camera button and capture these effortless images. A definite win in my book! 

So all in all it has been a fantastic few weekends of minis, I still have one last mini tonight, that I know will go off without a hitch! I don’t know, I just feel it in my bones that it will go really well. I’m so excited! But for now, I will be finalizing the rest of the O’Connor album and sending them off to happy clients to enjoy! I hope you all have a fabulous Monday (as much as you can, because hey, it IS Monday!) 

Cait