Grace :: 1 Year

Here's baby Grace last October at just one week old...

 

And here's Grace now... as beautiful as can be and about to turn 1!  Time flies!

  

 Isn't she beautiful!?  And that outfit... thanks Sara!

These were taken in Oak Glen, California, a tiny little town known for its apple orchards. It was a really fun place to spend a day, and from a photographer's point of view it held unlimited photographic opportunities-- orchards, historic buildings, wide open spaces, picket fences, brick walkways-- it was amazing. There were even some cool crates and wooden chairs just sitting around the orchards for us to use for posing Gracie. The best thing about the area is that it's so open--you can wander pretty much wherever you want to go and you don't have to pay a cent!

I did learn a valuable lesson from this photo shoot--Be over prepared.  I was very casual when planning for this shoot for two reasons.   1.) I knew Sara (Grace's mom) would be all over pinterest finding fun ideas, poses, outfits, etc. so I didn't feel like I had to plan too much in that department, and 2.) These are my best friends and this is something like the fourth session I've done of them (plus they've assisted me on two additional shoots.)  So, I pretty much just made sure I had a charged battery and headed to the location.  When we got there I popped in my recently emptied 8GB SD card, took two test shots of my boys to check the lighting, and that's when my SD card gave me an error message I've never seen before (and which I've since learned from SanDisk means the card is toast.)  So, here we are way out in the boonies, and I hadn't thought to pack extra cards.  Yikes.  Luckily I had one 1GB card in my camera bag (all my other cards are stacked next to my computer---shame on me!)  My 1GB card said I could shoot something like 60 pictures if I shot in RAW only--no Jpegs.  It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I am notorious for over-shooting, and on this day I just couldn't.  In fact, Sara and I had to weed out the bad shots on the camera every so often to be able to keep shooting.  It forced me to take my time a bit more, and, in the end, gave me much fewer pictures to sort through afterwards.  So, I guess there are two morals to the story here: be prepared but less is more.  Hope you enjoy the photos :)