The cake smash has been booked, and now I need to know how the parents picture it in their minds, colours, favourite themes etc. For this one I was asked to make it for a boy and with a bit of a Maori theme. 
So, I thought, ok, shades of blue which made me think of paua shell, hmm I need to find some paua patterned material, (sometimes in Gisborne it's hard to get some items), but I managed to find some at Bernina 'yay!'.
I then chopped it up into flags, folded tops over and hot glued, threaded nto string and  'voila' a paua shell bunting :).
I hope you enjoy the following photos as much as this wee chap loved his time in the studio.

First birthdays are so much fun, not only for the one year old but also for the parents to celebrate a whole year of firsts. These little tikes grow up so fast you really have to document the milestones to preserve for the future.

I've been thinking lately about just giving my clients their photos on a digital format, will they print the photos out or will they show a few people then throw the disk into a drawer?
It's a digital age now, photos are now shared on social media, they are liked and talked about, then.... ?
The images can also be downloaded from a website holding your personal gallery for a certain amount of time from which you can share and download. A great option, as DVD's will soon be obsolete, but will they get downloaded and printed?

Back in the day, there were no digital files just small back and white prints, later colour prints, from film cameras, we had to print them out to view them and they were all set out in large and small albums and still to this day we can pull them out and talk about the old relatives dating back to the beginning of last century.
Will we still pop a disk into a computer 100 years from now?

I doubt it very much.

As a photographer I must encourage you to enjoy both formats, keep the digital images as back up but you must also have the images printed so they can be enjoyed often and are always available instantly. A print lasts a lifetime and is the most meaningful way of enjoying your image.

Times are changing as we speak, DVDs, CD's and even USB's are becoming obsolete with the influx of the smartphone. Up until recently most homes had a PC or laptop available at home, but now everyone has their own smartphone and can do everything they need to on the phone.

Where are the photo albums? Where is the back up of your family photos?

Everything is now online.... someone else is looking after your images, can we trust they will keep them safe?

Most websites and galleries will last quite a few years, but some will stop being hosted so do some research.
Facebook has been going since February 2004 and doesn't look like slowing down any time soon so we can save a lot of images on there, but they are low quality images, no good for printing and displaying on your wall.
Smartphones will only keep low quality images also no good for printing.
I have sent clients images and they have saved them on their phone and have asked why the images will be no good for print, the phone has resized them so they are phone friendly and now too small for that special canvas to put on your wall or give to Grandma for Christmas.

This link from www.urban75.org has some information on image size for print which may be useful, but to keep your images ready for print I feel you must save them on some form of back up in your home as well as online, the more back up you can have the better off you will be.

I been made aware of another fantastic website that you can physically check your image to see how large you can print, the page has an app you can check exactly how good or bad your image will be for the type of print you want. Check out; www.thecanvasprints.co.uk/image-resolution-for-printing and learn a lot more about pixels per inch and what they mean for your image.


Some of the best online image storage websites I have come across are the following;

• Dropbox
• Flickr
• Amazon Cloud Drive
• Apple Icloud
• Google Photos

So to recap, my advice is to keep your images on a hard drive at home, save your favourites on a specialised online image storage service but most important of all, print the treasured images and keep them in a precious album to be passed down to your children and their children.........

You are preserving your history for future generations.

Dusty is growing so fast, he is now 9 & 1/2 weeks, I will have to take some more photos, the smiles are coming hard and fast and experimenting with giggles and talking.
Love, love love him.

If you are considering booking for a newborn session, please have a read of the attached link. Please ask me if you have any questions at all.

I can't believe how fast this year has gone, it seems like only yesterday we were enjoying Christmas 2014.
It has been a lovely year, we have celebrated my daughters wedding which was held at Lake Waikaremoana,  oh what a spiritual place, and another daughter is now blossoming with her third child, so looking forward to a new baby next year.

I think this year has gone so fast for me because I have been able to fill each week doing what I enjoy most, photographing so many smiling faces. Since starting Smile Baby I have met a lot of gorgeous families, and being able to freeze a moment in time for them to treasure for years to come has been so enjoyable.

Most parents who come worry that their child will touch things and make a mess, but my studio is for babies, children and families so it needs to be a space where everyone feels comfortable, its also a space that's not too large, so doesn't take too long to clean up, so don't worry - it is for children so we can get some natural happy smiles.

After searching the internet for many hours to find a tutorial to make them, unusually I didn't find anything that really showed the whole process, so with the information I did find, I experimented with the grey and fawn fleece.

Mission :- to felt one side and leave the other side curly, so it resembles a very fluffy sheep skin rug but the sheep doesn't have to lose its life in the process.

So enjoy the following video of my felting experience, I hope you gain a few pointers from  my free tutorial........

Family photo sessions can be so much fun, and I reckon the best ones to look back on are where the family has forgotten the photographer and they are able to just have fun as was the case in my following family fun day at the park.
These memories will now be with them for generations to come.