Trystan Photography: An Intimate Portrait.

Oh this little man was a dream, he did SO incredibly well for me! I love me some sleepy babies!

Miss Leah was a joy to photograph! And incredibly sweet… I love watching first time parents with their new baby. The love and amazement in their eyes is indescribable and these lucky parents were no exception.  So in love with their new baby girl… and who can blame them, she’s beautiful!

Such a gorgeous little girl… and oh so sweet!

Brooklyn was a joy to photograph, loved this session!

I had some of the most precious newborns in the month of January! What a wonderful way to start off the new year. A couple of them were amazing sleepers, let me mold and pose them anyway I wanted… then a couple were a little more tough. Always sleeping with one eye open, watching me and refusing to sleep… luckily, with patience, a warm house and a full tummy they all finally succomed to their need for sleep and passed out! That’s when the real fun begins.

A lot of parents think they want their newborn to be awake for pictures… when in reality newborns photograph best when they are in that deep deep sleep where they can be moved without waking for a single second. Typically, if the baby is awake when I get there I’ll start the session and try to get a few shots of their bright eyes, but after a few of those I always recommend nursing/feeding the baby to top them off and get them to go to sleep. Sleepy newborns are much easier to work with than wide awake ones!

One of my best friends, Gaby, just delivered her third daughter, McKenna. She picked a great day to be born… my birthday! So McKenna’s daddy came up with the nickname of KimKenna…. since we will forever share the same birthday. I thought it was cleaver and pretty cute! Especially since I was there photographing her grand entrance into the world!

You’ll be seeing her on the blog as she grows through the first year, and I am so excited… she is just the cutest and most precious little girl. And look at all that hair! You’ve also seen her two older sisters on the blog before… so keep your eye out for their first session together!

Gaby made a great decision to have me photograph McKenna before she was even a week old. Newborns are the easiest to photograph in the first week of life… they hardly, if ever!, wake up… and let me mold them and move them whatever way I want. Its a dream really! They still have the scrunchy look and are just so easy to handle. I typically say before they are 2 weeks old is best, but the first week is ideal!!

It’s not often I sit a baby down to photograph them and they are smiley and happy from the start! But I sure do love when that happens! I can always depend on Elena smiling for me, she’s got to be one of the happiest (and cutest!) babies I’ve photographed. Sure makes my life a lot easier!

Seeing these four together again brings such joy to my heart. Mark just got back from his third tour in Iraq. I am so happy (and relieved!) that he made it home safely… I photographed the Shepherds right before Mark left for Iraq and then again just now when he returned. It was a great pleasure to photograph them again… after that long year apart put behind them, them knowing their family will always be together from here on out!

And thank you to Mark… who has sacrificed so much to serve his country. To keep us safe… you are a true American hero and I feel honored to call you a friend!

I was just watching TV with the kids last night and fiddling with my new camera, the Nikon d300s, when I suddenly wanted to make something good.

So, what began as a collection of random shots turned into my ode to my family. I don’t feel like I deserve all of this sometimes, and I know I don’t do enough to tell them what they mean to me. This film is a small effort to try and do more of that.

My favorite part is the very end when Charlotte gets home late from a day of shooting and the kids run to her for hugs. Love it!

Nikon D300s = $1800 bucks. Memories like these = $priceless$!

The amazing song is “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam off of their new album, Backspacer.

Wow. Adam and Sara are in love.

Some couples, (all of our recent clients of late) you can just sense a certain ease about them that seems to go soul-deep.

We shot at Washington Park, where Adam and Sara live nearby, and where Adam executed his surprise proposal one morning on one of their jogs together (yes, they’re runners, as if you couldn’t tell… I felt fat just standing around them).

I don’t know if it was because Wash Park is where they were engaged, or because they were in their neighborhood and felt a familiarity, or if it’s because they felt safe with me, or what… but I feel so lucky to have been able to capture such a pure and easy love in such a fantastic setting.

I can’t wait for your wedding, you two!

I met Derek and Mackenzie in a parking lot at DU and as we walked, I chatted with them about their story. (This isn’t simply to fill time, but because I wholeheartedly believe that to create a sense of intimacy with my clients helps to build trust which then helps to promote wonderfully honest and fun portraits.) I learned how they met (high school sweethearts). I learned about their first dates. I learned Derek took a long time to finish undergrad…

So I cracked a line from Tommy Boy, “‘A lot of people take that long to finish college’,'Yeah, they’re called doctors.” Derek smiled and said, “Nah. I built a house.”

He built a house. Sure, I thought. He left school for a year to work on some construction crew and built a house. Interesting choice… “So, you left for a year to work on a crew?”

“Nope. Just myself.”

Huh? Yep. You read that right. He left school for a year to build a house by himself, with help from his dad and his buddy. No crew. Just himself.

Turns out he’s an engineer or architect or something really technical like that, and building a house apparently was his version of a sabbatical.

Not many people have even worked on a crew, much less built a house by themselves. So needless to say I was impressed!

It’s also needless to say how much fun these two were. As you can see from the photos, they were really high energy and very affectionate. Whatever we’re doing to attract the kind of clients we’re getting, I glad it’s working because it’s so much easier to take fun, attractive portraits of extroverts who are authentically in love!

My favorite shot came at the end of the session, when I asked Mack and Derek if there were any more shots they could think of and Mackenzie asked if we could recreate their first kiss from back in high school. Back then, apparently Mackenzie was a little aggressive, and a little nervous but when she leaned forward to kiss Derek (eyes closed) she ended up making out with his nose. Obviously, this made quite an impression on them as we were re-creating it years later. Not only is the shot hilarious, and the back story even better, but I love the look on Derek’s face. To me it says: “Hmmmmmmmm. Am I grossed out or a little bit into this?”