“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are gray.
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you, please don’t take… my sunshine away.

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping, I dreampt I held you in my arms.
When I awoke dear, I was mistaken, so please don’t take.. my sunshine away.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are gray.
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you, please don’t take… my sunshine away.”

This is the MOST requested song I sing to my girls at night before bed. They love it. They love this song SO MUCH, they requested it be played at our wedding in September. Their exact words were, “Mommy, can you and Daddy dance with us to our own special song?” … the words that bled from my heart with total and utter love, “OMG YES, YES WHAT SONG?” So, You are my Sunshine is kind of a thing in our home.

We don’t always have good days, but we don’t always have bad days. As parents, it takes patience, stength, and at times we just need to walk away.

Children don’t always want to smile, they don’t always want their photos taken. As a photographer AND a Mom. This is super hard and has always been challenging. Our children will smile for everyone else but us. It’s just like the old saying, “The Shoemakers children have no shoes”. Yep, this photographer doesn’t have that many photos of us. We don’t always have the time to set up the tripod, the timer, and hope for a good photo. So, we drive around, pull over on the side of the road for potty breaks, we find beautiful fields of flowers. We meet farmers, and we TRY our best.

It’s not always a perfect experience, and sometimes I get upset, because I really, really just want those pretty pictures of my babies. Then I get home. I unload my cards, I preview the photos. I sit here and smile, because even though my babies didn’t cooperate THAT WELL, they’re beautiful because these photos are THEM. 100% THEM. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I look at these pictures and I smile for a few reasons. Want to know why? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway…

1. Toni doesn’t like to wear dresses. Instead, she’s wearing capri’s, a white undershirt tank top, and a tunic.
2. Gianna is wearing the dress we bought her for her preschool graduation. She will be in Kindegarden this year. This makes me so proud, and so sad for her to be growing up… so fast.
3. They both chose which bow color to wear. Their favorite colors are pink and purple. This is their individuality shining through.
4. Toni did not want to smile, all she wanted was ice cream. Her saddness was pure, the kind kids have when their biggest battle is what kind of ice cream they want, and if they will get it.
5. Gianna, lifted her hand up and played with her hair like I told her to. She is always wearing a toe ring on her pointer finger, because I gave it to her to wear to feel pretty. She felt so, so very pretty.
6. And lastly, the sunflowers were $0.50 cents, the owner of this property was selling them at a stand with a metal box for the money. His phone number was listed and said something like, “call us if you have a question, we dont bite!”. I left $5.00 in the box, and grabbed 4. I spoke with him and he said I could visit any time I’d like to take pictures in front of his flowers. He is the sweetest man, ever.
7. The girls were standing in the dirt, because they were terrified of the bee’s. Honestly, they screamed bloody murder. I explained to them they just want the pollen and that they’re trying to make honey. But you know, kids don’t listen very well, and they would NOT go back into the flowers.
8. Pink flip flops, because thats just how they roll in the summer.
9. The blurry yellow and green was Toni’s flowers that she didn’t want to hold. So I held them and made this work beautifully.
10. Last but not least, this is proof that I am able to get beautiful images of my children, even if they aren’t happy about it. It works because they’re beautiful, and nothing can ever change that. Unless of course, I have ice cream with me at the time of the shoot.

One thing I love, is when my clients trust me! One hour before sunset, is the ABSOLUTE BEST time to take pictures. Especially on the beach! You get natural, even, beautiful lighting. The sun is setting and I can control my settings PERFECTLY. It’s amazing and when everything goes perfect, my clients get beautiful photographs to print, hang on their walls and remember forever. This may be in my top favorite sessions of the season.

A HUGE THANK YOU to the Silipena family for trusting me with your memories and I hope you all love your photos as much as I do! Enjoy!

One of the first things I get asked after a session is booked, is “What should we wear!” Usually I point them in the direction of pinterest and tell them to start searching for style boards within that season. Sometimes it works out really well, and other times it leaves my clients dazed and confused. I’ve actually had clients show up with quite a few outfits in their car and ask me what they think. Instead of wasting time looking through clothing during a session, I try my very best to let them know what I think would work best for what they’re trying to achieve in their images. The decision to create my own style boards was out of pure frustration because I couldn’t find what I wanted to for my clients to look at. I wanted to put my own sense of style into it, and I wanted it to be branded with my logo, and some of my wording on it to let them know what I was thinking while I put the board together.

Tonight, I decided to look at Baby Gap, Gap Kids, Gap, and Banana Republic. All of these stores are linked together so when you look at them on the Internet, you can flip through each store. They’re also connected to Old Navy, Pepperlime, and Athleta. It’s such a user friendly website and I urge you to go check it out. What I liked about these stores is that I could make boards for babies, little kids, maternity AND engagement without having to do TOO much searching. The cloths are stylish and up to date, fun and funky, and simply adorable. Basically, I’m in love! Also, these things won’t break the bank. They’re perfectly affordable and will make your portraits look like you’ve had a professional stylist!

So without any more delay, check them out! Tell me what you think and if you like a store, and you want me to make some boards with my suggestions, please let me know! I will be more than happy to do so!

Enjoy!

xoxo,
Lauren
Bokeh Love Photography

Oh, Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day is that one-day that we get to reflect on how amazing we are! We created LIFE! We raise these children, and never get a break. We get up, get them ready for school, feed them, feed ourselves if we are lucky, change their diapers, help them brush their teeth, drop them off at school, get to work, pick them up from school, feel them dinner, play with them, love them, talk to them, listen to them, brush their teeth, get them in bed, hope they stay in bed, then lull them to sleep when they get out of bed… and finally, we are aloud to, we try to go to sleep, just to get up and do it all over again! (Ya know, or how ever your schedule is). I love being a Mom. I love that I am able to stay home and be a Mom. I love that I am able to work from home, and be there where they need me, whenever they need me, whatever TIME they need me. I love it, and I wouldn’t and couldn’t change it, ever.

I take beautiful photos of children, all the time. I take pictures on the beach, in a park, in the woods, in people’s backyard, and even at the zoo and on playgrounds! I make these beautiful images for everyone (and trust me I LOVE doing it) but It’s so difficult to get pictures of my own kids! “The Shoemakers kids have no shoes?” Yep, that’s me. It takes so much time to get my kids ready, get them to behave, get them to stop crying, hitting each other, yelling at each other, and stand still long enough for me to snap a few photos. Well, until I learned how to use my camera of course. It’s still difficult but now, I know how to set my camera correctly, to not get a hand of blur, or a jumping child’s face in motion. It really did just one day click in my head, “oh. Duh. THATS what I’m doing wrong?” Yes. That simple. (And Yes, I shoot FULL manual, no modes for me, I control exactly how I want my pictures to turn out, because my camera is just a tool, and I am the artist that drives it).

Anyway, Today I set out to get pictures of my babies. You won’t believe the location. It’s gorgeous; it’s lush, overgrown and fun. It’s my parent’s backyard. The place I grew up. It was a lot more maintained back then, but I love that you can’t see the fence, and there is all of this earthy green everywhere. It’s really neat and makes for amazing photos! I tell everyone not to worry what the background in a photo looks like, because it’s really focused on the person IN the photo, and not the background. The background is just extra anyway. It’s for fun, and it’s just for color. So after my parent’s backyard, I went to the campground, because seriously, the campground has the BEST scenery. There is this amazing strip of dirt called the landing. It’s great, it takes you out by the river, which is fabulous for photos – and how lucky we were that it was high tide! Like, super high tide!

So, Happy Mothers Day to me! I succeeded and got AMAZING photos of my babies. Their Daddy is definitely going to be happy and I’m just so proud. By the time we got home, the baby was knocked out, and our big girl, well, she thought she deserved an Oreo, so we had some Oreo’s together before she got tucked into her warm bed.

Love these photos SO MUCH – check them out!

XOXO,
Lauren
Bokeh Love Photography