This precious baby girl was so petite and delicate with the smoothest skin. I love that you can see the clamp on her unbilical cord in some of the images. Older people have often stopped my in the shops and told me that I should enjoy my babies because they grow so fast. This really is true and I love any detail in the image that shows how new they are. Even in a few short months, those images become priceless.

When I was selecting the images to blog, I understood my client’s dilemma when she was choosing her order, as I had way too many favourites.

My job sees me travelling from Sydney’s Northern Beaches, to the Eastern Suburbs and out to Sydney’s West. This client was from a small suburb called Emu Plains, which is the suburb we lived in when we first came to Australia. It’s a small little world!

I photographed two very beautiful sisters. I originally had a vision for a ballerina on black. We then incorporated the chair and became a bit more funky/contemporary. And the Mum brought along the sweetest pink dress so I knew I needed to photograph that against something much softer, so I used my bone backdrop.

This Mum has impeccable taste in clothes. That, coupled with the most beautiful girls and it really is so easy to photograph them.

As many of you know, my favourite product by far is acrylic wall mounts. The image looks like it is printed on glass and comes ready to hang.  I know it sounds cliche to say it has the wow factor, but it literally does. When people walk into a home with acrylic, they gasp ‘wow’!

We had the images in the chair printed on acrylic and they look amazing!

Here are a few images from our session.

The acrylic wall mounts:

Sleeping beauty…

I met this family when they had their second daughter. We instantly connected. The Mum is a lovely client, the type of client that all photographers love. She really values photography, she trusts in what I am doing and is so kind in her feedback to me.

When I first met them, we went to do family photos in the main bedroom. The light in the room was beautiful, but, it was coming in the wrong direction. I knew that I would get the best results if we moved the bed, but I had never moved a whole room around and I didn’t really want to ask. I had moved small parts of a clients’ room, but not something large like the bed. Still, I asked, because I knew that the results would be best And Elise, you created a monster, as I now happily boss people around to move whatever needs to be moved!

So when I got there this time, the furniture was already swapped around! Yay!

This beautiful little boy faced many challenges before he even got here. And he was born at 33 weeks. Our session was held 3 days before his due date, so he was nearly 7 weeks old. In photography terms, a 7 week old baby is no longer a newborn. We just can’t get them to sleep or curl up like one. The exception to that rule is when they are premmies. This beautiful boy went with the flow and let me move him around and pose him as I wished. He was so beautiful and perfect, and had the silkiest skin.

This was one of my favourite sessions from 2012. One reason was because I had already met the family and I loved watching them grow. Another is that I love so many images from this session.

I have titled this image “Safe in Daddy’s Hands” because after everything he went through, this image means so much more than the typical baby-in-Dad’s-hands pose. I hope you love these images as much as I do.

This beautiful baby girl gave me lots of smiles, even looking right into the camera. She was such a precious little girl and she loved swinging in my hammock. This hammock is a big hit with both babies and parents. I wish I had an adult sized one for me!!

Beautiful Mason was a gentle and placid soul. He had the most beautiful, smooth skin I have ever seen. And he had an adoring big sister who was very intrigued by her new baby brother. What a beautiful little family.

When I meet expectant parent’s, I always visualise what I think their baby will look like! I have done enough maternity and newborn sessions now to have some sort of idea about how baby will look.

Rhodry was no exception and he did look a lot like I thought he would, although he had a lot more hair than I imagined. He had a beautiful head of fine, dark hair. I didn’t use as many hats during this session as I wanted to see all that lovely hair. And he sure was as cute as a button, just like I thought he would be

We had a busy week in our home. My 8 year old has had wobbly teeth for a few weeks and then I got a call from school. You know, one of those calls that starts with “Mrs Gebran, everything is ok but…” and you know everything isn’t ok!

A child accidentally ran into my son and knocked his tooth right out! It also loosened the tooth next door. Everyone was in shock with the blood loss, but once that wore off, my son was excited as he hasn’t had a visit from the tooth fairy in some time. The following night, my eldest also lost a tooth. And the following night, my 8 year old lost the second top tooth. I have it on good authority that the tooth fairy is running low on coins now!

I am a part of a photography forum where we share and critique our work. It is a very sound way to make sure your imagery is always getting better and it is also a great way of building networks and friendships. A photographer once shared an image of a child with missing top teeth, and I just knew if I ever had the chance, I would like to try this shot out with my own child. It isn’t often you have the two teeth out at the same time. So we had a mini session in my garage and it was a ton of fun. I hope you enjoy these images, I am definately putting one on my wall.

I had already photograped this beautiful Mumma-to-be, however, I had a few visions in my mind for a beach maternity session that I wanted to fulfill, so I asked Amanda if she would like to have a different type of session. Amanda is fun and loves to try new things so she met up with me at Coogee for our session.

Each season, I like to shoot at a different beach. This season, I chose Coogee. It has great access and parking, which is perfect when I have a lot to carry. More importantly, I love the colours at Coogee, the rocks have beautiful warm colours in the rocks and deep greens scattered throughout the rocks too. This translates to beautiful imagery.

On the day of our shoot, there was a lot of seaweed. I was trying to scoop it away. I am sure I looked funny from behind trying to scoop it all up, but it really was a futile exercise. It was everywhere. So we embraced the seaweed as best we could. It does add colour and texture to the images, I think.

And I have to share a behind the scenes image from this shoot. Amanda’s husband was a good sport (despite being unwell) and helped us manage the material in the wind. He was pivotal in getting these beautiful images.

Almost a year ago, my beautiful friend Jacque lost her battle with breast cancer. The one thing I still struggle with to this day, is that when the Dr diagnosed her, he said (and I quote) “There’s no such thing as 100%, but this is 100% as curable as you can get”. I will NEVER forget those words. And to this day, there’s this tiny voice inside my head that says, “but you said…..”, like a child.

Jacque went through treatment and got the all clear after her treatment. Some time later, I think it was about a year, she was complaining of having a sore back. I remember thinking nothing of it, until she mentioned that panadine forte was not making a dent in the pain! Everyone urged her to go to the Dr, and to cut a long story short, she was diagnosed with incurable bone cancer (advanced breast cancer). On 25th February, 2012, Jacque passed peacefully with her family around her.

I am a photographer, and I am a huge fan of Sue Bryce. She is the Australian Portrait Photographer of the Year 2011 and 2012. In 2012, she was teaching a course on Creative Live, and she had an email to critique another photographers images of a woman called Jill. Jill is travelling the same journey as my friend, Jacque. Jill wanted to tell her story. She wants to spread the word about breast cancer. She wants to stop this from happening to others. So Jill, Sue, filmmaker Hailey Bartholomew, and an entourage of women went to Paris to document Jill’s story.

You urge you to watch this and share this. This is Jill’s story. It’s a beautiful story of inspiration, love and gratitude. And can I urge all women to check themselves, and make the best lifestyle choices you can, and hopefully we can tackle this disease, one woman at a time.

“Beauty is a light in the heart” ~ Kahlil Gibran

The Light That Shines from hailey bartholomew on Vimeo.

This time last year, I did a blog post showcasing my favourite images of 2011. There were 17 images showcased. I remember it was hard to narrow it down…

I thought I might do the same for 2012. So I went through and copied my favourites into a folder. There were 115 images in the folder. I think it is safe to say I had an amazing year. I am very blessed!

There is just no way I can narrow these images down and I don’t think 115 images will fit easily into a blog post, so I created a video instead. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy…

I would like to thank all of my clients, from the bottom of my heart for inviting me into your homes and your lives to help capture your memories. I am beyond blessed and eternally grateful.