History

I adore photographing families that I have a history with. It's so easy to capture honest expressions when you know your subjects personally. Take these siblings... I've known them since the day they were born. Their mother and I have known each other since college and she was one of my first portrait clients when I was building my photography portfolio. It's families like these that make my job look easy.

Here are just a few images from our 30 minute mini session...

Easy Peasy!

Now that Family Portrait season is now in full swing, I'm working every Saturday until the end of October. Hint Hint... those of you who are putting off booking your family sessions, if you want a Saturday, call soon! :) I usually hire an assistant for my family portraits but decided to risk doing this one alone. It's definitely not that I like to live life on the wild side, but I knew the youngest subjects were school age, and girls. No squeaky toys or silly games would be necessary. This family was so incredibly easy to photograph, they had me considering the need to change my specialty. The images speak for themselves... just look!

Foursome

This lovely foursome was a winner of the Relationships Blog Contest several months ago. Their son took a little warming up, and typical to his age and gender he wasn't thrilled with the idea of a photo shoot, but with a little coaxing we were able to get some wonderful images. See for yourself :)

This was a great way to start, if we could have had a photo shoot with only tickling and wrestling brother would have been so much more into it. This is one of my session favorites. Just makes me want to smile and then go tickle my own babies.
Little Miss here, was not the least bit camera shy, and actually busted out with some of the best smiles when she had the camera all to herself.

Have no fear mom and dad, this is only one of many wonderful family images. No head swapping necessary!

Ahhh... brotherly love. Don't you just love how big brothers show affection to their sisters. He kept telling his mom that he HAD to have his hand there so she wouldn't fall. Putting his hand on her shoulder was not good enough. :D

Returning from Vacation

My husband and I dropped our three children off with his parents and then boarded a plane for a 6 day anniversary trip to San Francisco. The weather was beautiful, and after a day or two I stopped feeling like I was forgetting something. Going from a busy life with three children where you constantly remind little people to put on shoes, go to the bathroom, buckle up, get out, don't grab, sit down, mind your manners and lots more... to traveling with a handsome grown man who can care for himself, and actually looks out for me most of the time, took some adjusting. We had a wonderful time doing lots of grown up activities like hiking 10 miles in redwood covered mountains, driving and touring wineries in Sonoma and Napa, exploring the tide pools on the beach and then of course eating dinner whenever WE were hungry. Unfortunately upon returning home, it took me at least a week to settle back into my routine and my real life. Room service will spoil me more quickly than anything else!


I do apologize for not mentioning my leave of absence prior to our departure, but I did return emails and phone calls periodically so hopefully no one thought I'd dropped off the planet never to be seen again. Those that have young children know how difficult it is to pack a family of 5 and get them out of the house with everything necessary for a week long trip, and honestly, I completely forgot about my blog in the midst of all the chaos.

If you've read this far, thank you for sticking with me, and I am indeed back and working too. I'm booking into October with only 1 Saturday left in September so if you're considering fall family portraits, don't wait too long. Email me at allison@thornton-photography.com soon!

July Newsletter

For those who are not on my mailing list, or have missed it, the July Newsletter is out. To view a larger version, simply click the image below.

Another Fashion Friday

If you haven't been looking carefully over the last few weeks you might not have realized there are some rules to planning clothing for family portraits. As a general rule, it's best to choose two colors for everyone to wear. And no one person in the group should wear one of those colors. Different shades of the same color palette are acceptable and encouraged. Notice in the image below, I've used shades of blue and brown and even though not all the colors match exactly they coordinate well.

Family

Last weekend I had the honor of photographing a family portrait for some business owners here in Nacogdoches. It was a very nice change of pace photographing a family with only grown children. I left the house with a nagging feeling that I'd forgotten something important. Then I realized, it was my bag full of colorful squeaky toys that are necessary to keep the attention of my littlest subjects. Aside from 100% humidity and saturated ground, Saturday was a beautiful morning for portraits!