Jean: Maternity | Rochester, NY Modern Maternity Photographer

Jean is an amazing woman... almost 36 weeks pregnant with TWINS and not a swollen ankle in sight! She & her family drove in 30+ minutes to meet me for their session despite the threat of rain. I'm so glad we decided to go for it because the overcast skies were perfect.

We were going for a casual, natural kind of shoot. Some general posing but more just letting me capture the moments.

I love this one of her & hubby together:


They know they're having identical twins, but they don't know if they're boys or girls. The brothers are hoping for girls!



And a couple of just Jean, working that pregnancy glow!





It was great to meet you guys. Jean- I'm thinking "Friday" thoughts for you! Hope you work with you again when the babies arrive!!

Senior Portraits: Shannon part 2- Olympia | Rochester, NY Modern Senior Portrait Photographer

First of all, I feel the need to confess that I'm eating chocolate cake as I'm writing this blog post. It's been a busy couple of days, and franky, cake makes me happy. Especially made from scratch chocolate fudge cake. YUM! (For those of you that don't know me all that well, besides photography, baking is my other creative outlet.)

Now that you're all wishing you had my cake (come on, you know you are), let's move on to Shannon's senior portraits part 2... the outdoor adventure. I found this really cool location we wanted to use, with sunflowers as far as the eye can see. The only problem is, we're about 2 weeks too late and they're almost all dead, lol. We made good use of the area anyways, and I think this shot is so cool.



Then on to a gorgeous park down the road. I asked Shannon to do something well, Shannon-ish here. So cute!



Shannon is a super-smiley girl, but I think she's been practicing her serious face because this is FIERCE!



This is one of my favorite spots in the park. It looks completely different as the seasons change, but it always works.



By this time it was seriously threatening to rain, and we even felt a few sprinkles. But we decided to brave it and headed over to the boardwalk for some last shots.



Shann- there are soooo many awesome ones, I had a hard time picking what to show here. I'll have them ready for you as soon as I can!!

Senior Portraits: Nicole - Brockport | Rochester, NY Modern Senior Portrait Photographer

Another rainy day left us plenty of time for the studio portion of Nicole's senior session! (We're going to do the outdoor portion in October when the leaves change, how cool is that!)

I loved her choice of prop: PURSES!!



Nicole was my test model for some new poses - they look great on her!!




These next two are for Nicole's mom - specific requests to do these shots. I love when clients are interactive... it's your session, if there's something you want to try, just let me know!!




Nicole- sorry this post is a day late, but I hope you enjoy them so far!! Lots of great ones with *big smiles* :-)

Retro Baby

My 86 year old Gramma, Ben's Great-Gramma, gave him this outfit. Where do you even find an outfit like this outside of 1952?? HAHA. He finally fit into it (actually he's almost too big for it!) so we had to get some photos for Gramma.

Hope it amuses you as much as it did me :-)




Have a GREAT Friday!

Senior Portraits: Ryan - Aquinas | Rochester, NY Modern Senior Portrait Photographer

Ryan was my first student from Aquinas, and it was so cool to find out that they do yearbook photos at the school, so we didn't have to work around any requirements for headshots. Yay!!

Ryan's mom found me in a web search, which is always nice to hear because it means I'm not buried on page 427 :-)

With a little work, we got some great natural expressions:





After a rainy morning, the skies cleared up and it turned out to be a gorgeous evening.

I love the bold coloring behind Ryan in this one!



I forgot about his awesome bench until we finally got to this spot at the end of the session. It looks great in color too, but the drama of black & white works nicely.



Ryan, it was great working with you! I hope you enjoy them so far!!

Senior Portraits: Lauren - Athena | Rochester, NY Modern Senior Portrait Photographer

Lauren was in for an early session today, full of laughter and smiles! She brought along some family members prepared to say something funny just at the right moment. It definately paid off!

I love this first one!!



Lauren took advantage of a more affordable way to get her senior portraits done... by booking a regular Studio Session Level 1! If the economy has got you in a pinch, ask me about this option!

Great photos aren't only created in full-blown 2 hour senior sessions. This was just 30 minutes!!




We must've just missed you guys at Kohl's this afternoon :-) Hope you got some great deals, and I hope you enjoy your images so far!!

Let's comparison shop, shall we?

I like to check in on the local photography market from time to time and make sure I'm still offering the best I can to my clients, at the most affordable price.

It's Senior Portrait season, so I figured that's a great one to take a look at today. And one of the biggest studios in town is Leichtner's. They do beautiful work, truly they do. (They even did my senior portraits, back in the day.) But when you start looking at the pricing... wow, you might be shocked. I know I was.

So let’s comparison shop...

For $676 at Leichtner's you'd get:
*Session in the studio, 75 minutes
*Outdoor location anywhere in Rochester
*(3) outfits
*(3) 'add-ons' [things like props or the option for b&w images]
*(1) 11x14
*(3) 8x10's
*(72) wallets

If you need to purchase any additional prints, you can do so without a minimum... but they start at $40 for an INDIVIDUAL PRINT!

Need some more wallets? (48) of them are $160! (How you going to even hand those out when they're over $3/each!)

**This is already more than twice the cost of D'Marie Photography - and you'd get (7) less prints. To truly compare apples to apples, you'd be looking at CLOSE TO $1,000 at Leichtners. Yikes!!!


NOW let's take a look at D'Marie Photography.

For just $335 at D'Marie you'd get:
*Session in the studio, unlimited time
*Outdoor location anywhere in Rochester
*(3) outfits
*(2) props
*the option for b&w, sepia, AND special effect images
*(1) 11x14
*(4) 8x10's
*(6) 5x7's
*(72) wallets
*Basic blemish retouching

And if you need to purchase any additional prints, you can do so without a minimum... and they start at just $4. There’s no zero after it like at Leichtner's.

Need more wallets? Available in sets of (8) for $10!

So what's the lesson?
D'Marie Photography is:
HIGH QUALITY. MORE PRINTS. UNLIMITED SESSION TIME. INEXPENSIVE ALA CARTE PRINT PRICES.
LESS THAN 1/3 THE COST.

Yearbook deadlines are right around the corner- book your session right away!

Senior Portraits: Shannon - Olympia | Rochester, NY Modern Senior Portrait Photographer

Senior MAYHEM is in full swing... school is starting back up soon, and yearbook deadlines are closing in. So you'll be seeing LOTS of senior posts in the upcoming weeks.

Tonight's session was special for me though. I've known Shannon for hmm, maybe 3 years now and I just love her to pieces. We've been talking about her portraits forever! The weather was uncooperative for the awesome outdoor adventure we have planned, so this is Part I- studio only.

So let's get to it. A few of my absolute favorites so far! Gorgeous!!

Great yearbook option on this first one!



I try very hard to truly make my senior sessions unique. I've seen way too many cookie cutter studios, where there are a handful of poses & props that are used over & over again in every session. Blah! (Tim is laughing right now, inside joke between me & the hubby. And now I'm laughing just thinking about him laughing. haha. Ok I'm getting off track here, sorry.)

Here's a great example. You won't find a single shot like this before in my portfolio. Love it!



Shannon has been dancing since she was 5. This summer she had the privilege to go to DISNEY WORLD to be part of a performance. How cool is that!! This is the dress she wore for it. She doesn't do serious face easily, but she rocked her inner America's Next Top Model for this one!



And a first for me in the studio... a dance/jump shot. She was way up there!



Can't wait for the outdoor part next week- we have a great location picked out!

Shan, you're awesome, hope you love them so far!!

Biker Baby

My aunt, who's in her early 50's and lives in florida now, rides a bike. A MOTORCYCLE bike. (I know, she's the coolest)

So she mailed up the best Harley jean jacket for Ben. The smallest size she could find is a 4/5 toddler so it'll be a while before he can wear it. We were talking about it, and thought it would be funny to get him a skull cap do-rag to go with it, haha. And it showed up in my mailbox this week, woo hoo!

I had to send her photos of it, so we just ran down to the studio quick. Just wanted to share.

Have a great day everyone!!

Senior Portraits: Sam - Penfield | Rochester, NY Modern Senior Portraits

Representing the East side was today's senior, Sam. Can I tell you how excited I was to be shooting indoors only on this 90 degree day?? lol.

Sam is definately in his element working the serious look!


This one on the trunk might be my favorite from the day!


On a funny note, I promised Hannah I would post this one too...
We do what's called a custom white balance each time we set up a new backdrop. Basically it just helps tell the camera what's what in the world of tones & colors, and makes sure the camera's sensor isn't fooled by the backdrop color. We take a read and I manually set it. Well, we had our first technically difficulty with the whole process. For some reason, the camera kept recording Sam as green. I mean like The Hulk green. haha. A few more tries and it was all squared away, but it's still a funny shot:


Even though Sam said he's not really a smile kind of guy, I always make sure to capture some. I'm loving this one!


This one makes me laugh because it's a really genuine smile... due to the fact that it's the last shot I was taking for the session, haha.


Sam, you were so easy to work with! I hope you enjoy your preview!!

FREE Maternity Session

I'm looking to expand my portfolio of Maternity work, so I'm offering a FREE SESSION to the first person who can help me out!

It will be an outdoor session (we can discuss locations), must be held during the month of September or October, and you must be 28-35 weeks pregnant at the time of the session. As my way of saying thanks for helping me out, I'll also include (1) 8x10 print. Additional images will be available if you choose to purchase (with a discount!), but there is absolutely no obligation!

Know someone preggie? Let them know about this great deal!!

Look for the D'Marie ad!

If you live in Greece, look for the D'Marie Photography ad in the Greece Post (Sports & Leisure section) AND the Community Shopping Guide (opposite page of Carbones & Rick's Prime Rib, yum!)!

Up unitl now my business has been all word of mouth. I decided to try branching out, so it's my first official piece of printed advertising. Fun!!!

Senior Portraits: Marlena - Olympia | Rochester, NY Modern Senior Portrait Photographer

Another fabulous day of sunshine (I think we're getting spoiled here!) and another Senior session! We started late in the evening so we headed to the outdoor locations first, before we lost the sunlight. I've been wanting to use this first spot for a while now... I love finding new areas to keep each Senior's session totally unique!!

Working the serious look!


Then we were off to Highland Park to Warner Castle & the Sunken Gardens. It was full of mosquitos, but still a great choice!!


It was almost dark by the time we got to the studio, and 9pm before we were done!! I LOVE this shot! The fan adds the perfect touch for senior girls!


A quick outfit change... Leopard print. Seriously cool. Early on in the session Marlena told me "I've never modeled before". Um, I think she was kidding about that :-)


It was super fun, and thanks to Hannah & Alex who came along to make Marlena laugh! Hope you like them so far - lots of great ones!!!!!!

Senior Portraits: Patrick - Olympia | Rochester, NY Modern Portrait Photographer

When you have outdoor sessions scheduled, you think about the weather constantly. With the t-storms the past few days I was worried about PJ's Senior Portraits today, but what an exceptionally gorgeous day it was!

I did his older brother's portraits a few years ago too, and both boys are so super nice!! I don't think you can tell just by looking at the images, but he's very quiet. Thankfully I'm perfectly willing to say dumb things to loosen kids up, haha. I think it paid off big time, check these out:

LOVE this shot- this would be an awesome choice for the yearbook!!




And a couple from our outdoor spots. Would you believe we were at the Greece Public Library & Apple Annie's?? I love how different things translate in photos if you know what to look for. Something totally ordinary becomes way cool if you work it right.




PJ is tall... we're talking 6', so I made poor Hannah drag along my ladder so I could get this shot. I love having an assistant, haha. And this was totally worth it- it may be my favorite from the day!


PJ- it was lots of fun!! Hope you like them so far!!

Family Day

Today was a fun Sunday! Usually we go grocery shopping and do laundry, but today we interrupted our routine to have Gramma & Grampa over for dinner. We helped Ben make a garden stepping stone with feet prints this morning for a gift, and due to our late planning they didn't actually get to take it home with them (it has to cure in the mold for 2 days) but they did get to see it finished at least!

While I was working in the kitchen, Ben kept me company in his little bug chair. I felt like I hadn't taken any photos in a while (I think it's been 2 weeks- that's a long time to a photographer, haha) so I quick grabbed a few shots.



I was obsessed with super close ups for some reason - delicious baby details!!




Have a great Monday everyone! The next few weeks are very busy with sessions so look for new posts regularly!!