OK, OK, so this super awesome and hip German couple spent their month vacation in Rochester because they used to live here. Kerstin & Philipp moved away about two years ago and now have a new baby boy! The whole time they were planning their trip, Kerstin kept making sure I’d be able to fit them into my schedule while they were here.

With the entire month to work with, it wasn’t hard to find some days that worked. We lucked out with the day we chose though. The morning was PERFECT for Lake Ontario beach photos, then we hit up the George Eastman House (and their old apartment on East Ave.) in the afternoon for some cloud cover…. Their little 9 month old baby did a great job with the family portraits and he gave me exactly the images I wanted!

Kerstin is hilarious. Her command of the English language is amazing. She is so funny. I can’t imagine even being able to fluently speak another language, much less understand the nuances well enough to be funny. Philipp is fun too. And interesting. He is Dr. Urban and works on improving printed images that even I don’t understand fully. We can geek out and Kerstin tolerates us, which is nice.

What an honor to photograph this German family! I only hope I can plan a trip to Germany next Spring and set up some portrait sessions over there. It turns out that they live about 40 minutes away from my friend, Tess, that was just here a few months ago. I’ll have to learn a few more German words though….

It was awesome to meet Izzie and have brunch with the Crudup family. They have always been some of my favorite clients (because they are FUN) and is wonderful to see them all doing so well. We even got their dog, Echo, in some of the pictures. Another highlight was seeing all of my photography all over the house. Framed prints on the walls, signature frame in the hall, wedding album on the coffee table. Seeing my products/photographs living in their final location is so cool. Hearing that little Izzie loves looking through the wedding album is neat.

It is even more awesome that some of my good friends, Tony & Vivianna, live nearby in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I got to meet little Massimo finally and to see before everyone else that Vi is pregnant again! Woohoo! Congratulations Tony & Vi! Massimo and I totally hit it off and we watched the Little Mermaid together at least twice. Massi is an adorable mix between these two and aside from his late night Raves, he is treating Mom and Dad well. I know it will be a long time before I see these friends again, so I was happy to stop by and say “Hi!”

Eco-friendly wedding guest books and albums with green ink jet printing process and bamboo mounted prints are the newest addition to McKay’s Photography’s already environmentally friendly line of products.

* Even if you don’t really care about the state of the environment, you will love the look and feel of the paper in this guestbook, as it feels like felt and is easier to write on than the previous product I was using. The pricing is the same too, so extra bonus!

* The sustainable wedding albums are printed on fine art giclee ink jet prints with a hand sewn binding and several cover options. I love them. And I love the sustainable cover made of pineapple leaves… that used to be burned until someone thought to make paper out of them!

* As for the bamboo mounted prints, this doubles as a cutting board if things go south…. (KIDDING!). I saw these when I was at WPPI in Vegas and fell in love with them. The pricing is the same as my canvas prints…

McKay’s Photography is the premiere Eco-friendly wedding and portrait photographer in Upstate NY and the only Photographer in the Rochester area that is both PPA Certified and Greener Photography Certified. Click here, here and here for more info on what makes McKay’s Photography a green business in Upstate NY.

It was also wonderful to spend so much time with Nate & Jill, as they are a super cool biking/snowboarding family in the Denver area. Little G is super smart and fun and we had a great time playing peek-a-boo and rolling all around the ground.

Thanks again, Nate for your super awesome idea of a weekend getaway/working. It was an honor!

I can’t believe how wonderful this family is. Everyone was so easy going and friendly. I met Chris and Karen years ago and was humbled and honored to photograph Max when he was less than 24 hours old. Skip forward, and now he is 3! Wow, so much has changed in my life and theirs. It was nice to reconnect and to see everyone doing so well.

You can view all of the images from this session by clicking here.

One of my 2006 wedding clients (and 2008 Portrait customer) called me up out of the blue and offered to fly me out to Denver for the weekend to take their holiday family photos… and take me snowboarding! All because of a status update talking about my ‘post-wedding lack of motivation’.

What? Really?? YES!

So, friends, though I have two events to BLOG and some other things to do… I’m flying out Friday to snowboard all day Saturday, photograph a Denver family all day Sunday and hopefully see other friends/customers on Monday before I return. Wow. It is a good thing that I pushed all of those holiday prints in November! I should be able to mail all outstanding orders before I jet on out of here.

OK, now where did I put my snowboard luggage??

The beach was fun. It was a gorgeous morning and hardly anyone was there. Pretty much just us, the seagulls and the tractor that grooms it. Wow, the driver really knows the edges of that machine! We were so in his way and I’m surprised he didn’t yell at us to leave.

I am happy to report that Joey’s surgery went well and he is recovering well. He was adorable before, so I can’t wait to see him and his new face. What an honor it was to work with Melissa and the family again, especially with such an important portrait session.

Now, I get to see their family grow! These two are the definition of a unit. And this unit just got a little bigger. Tracie & Pano met freshman year at RIT and have been through it all together. That many years together before having children will probably end up being the best way to raise a child. They are so calm with Isaac and seem to really be at ease with this huge project that is a 3 month old. Of course, when you look at how stinking CUTE he is…. that helps a lot!

I couldn’t be more honored to document this first year of Isaac’s life for them.

What a beautiful evening at Webster Park and a fun time with one of my favorite families!

{A little trivia -  Jason built my custom vanity cabinet in my fancy newly renovated bathroom!}

The Smiths are a lovely family with 5 grandsons! How amazing is that. I feel sorry for the next baby if she is a girl. She’ll be a tough little girl, that’s for sure. These 5 boys were just a complete blast though. Not only did all of my tricks work on them, but they also were friendly to me right away. Most little kids aren’t as warm and open upon our very first meeting, so this really helped the portrait session go smoothly.

We were all laughs and chases and tackling, including myself. At one point, I think I had 4 of the 5 boys jump on my back. I tried to take a picture, because it must have looked hilarious… the portrait photographer getting really ‘into’ her work…

Anyway, here are my favorites from the multiple family portrait session. I love the life and reality of these images… these are the types of images I wish I had of my family growing up. My biggest memory of my Dad was wrestling with him after he got home from work!

Fun, yet hot and sticky senior portrait session in Rochester, NY for Churchville High School Senior, Keighley! We took some classic and some creative images for this beautiful senior!

I was a little surprised that she was so comfortable in front of the camera since she is a budding Photographer herself. It was good for me to step up my game with lenses and lighting to be sure that I provided them with images that she could never do herself. I’m pretty sure I got sand in my camera bag as well as all over my clean jeans, but these images were totally worth it!

This is one of those locations that I’ve scouted out on my weekly bike rides (including that morning) and I was so pleased with the results. Shawn and Julia recently acquired a sailboat, so I thought the marina was a great location for the two of them. Someone recently said that I manage to make Rochester look cool… maybe that is because I think Rochester is awesome!! Beauty in the eye of the beholder and all of that….

Anyway, I can not wait to photograph Julia & Shawn’s wedding this Fall and put together their Engagement Session Guestbook, which have been a big hit at this year’s wedding receptions!

These images are already online in their web gallery, so have fun looking through them…. however here are my absolute faves from the portrait session…

Deena and Brad were one of my very earliest Bride and Grooms, so this was an amazing opportunity to be able to photograph their growing family! My trip to DC was the perfect opportunity! Lucky for all of us, Brad’s sister and her family were also visiting so we were able to get images of all of the kids playing together…

Little Daria is only 5 months old, so she will have one heck of a time with 3 older boys to play with as she grows up. Luckily, they are all super fun and great kids. Brennan and Owen clearly are best buds and they were mesmerized by my camera. We laughed and laughed on the swing set. When Daria was fed and changed we took her inside for her own little photo shoot. No sooner did we get her naked did she pee on the bed. Awesome. You know, it is so worth it though because not much is cuter than little chubby naked babies!

We attempted a few group photos, but NONE of the kids were having it, as you can see from the above image. It is amazing that I am ever able to get any images of kids looking at the camera, since it just isn’t in their nature. This is why I like to let them just run around and be the kids that they are. I have the added bonus of laughing my head off at them too…

Daniela and Brad both hate getting their picture taken, but you really can’t tell here! They are both naturals! Brad kept cracking me up with all of the silly faces he makes to get Daniela to giggle and I think we’ll have to do a series of them…

My favorite part of the session was that Brad kept offering to break into the buildings for me… if only all of my clients thought breaking and entering was appropriate for my photo shoots! Ah, the mayhem we could cause. Thankfully, as we were leaving, they both said the photo shoot was a lot easier than they expected and that it was fun! Exactly what I like to hear!

I am so excited to be the chosen Photographer for their wedding this Fall at Bristol Harbour! It will be an honor and a pleasure!

We had a great time checking out the tulips, lilacs and magnolias in Highland Park. The sun was shining and the kids were in a great mood. They are getting just old enough to participate in the portrait session, so I’m able to use new tricks to get them to do what I need them to do. On the ride home, Tony called me the ‘child whisperer’ and I laughed. For me, kids are easy! However, I’m not invested like parents are. I’m not sleep deprived. I am only around the noise for a short time and can leave at anytime. For me, kids are FUN and parents are much more difficult. Luckily for all of us, this day was perfect and I feel like this was the best session we’ve done together yet!

Sean is doing so well. He is intrigued by all that he sees, and smartly, was shy when I first arrived. I warmed him up to me by giving him access to my camera bag! Lenscaps, flash domes galore! Finally he settled on locking and unlocking my car. We all giggled every time my car beeped!

This Portrait Session was a really fun way to reconnect with these two (now three). Special thanks to Kat’s Mom for thinking of it as a Christmas present to them! Gift certificates for heirloom family portraiture is a gift that keeps on giving for generations to come!

I don’t know what it is about me, but I am a kid magnet. Much to my Mom’s dismay, I don’t have any of my own children. But I love other people’s kids. I get them tuckered out and then pass them back over. None of the drama and all of the fun. This photo shoot was of no exception. Super fun and I laughed the whole time. Evan was putty in my hands, and I was for his. Poor little Owen had the sniffles, and I could tell he wasn’t feeling well, but he looked super cute anyway and I know he had fun too.

What an honor to photograph their growing family, since I was already booked for their wedding date and though I’ve known them for years, had yet to work with them. I hope that they love the images and I get to work with them again as the kiddos get bigger!

Here are just a few of the children playing “ring around the rosie” and running around the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY.

With this new plan, I will photograph anything from pregnancy through the first birthday! If requested and possible, I will also photograph the birth of your precious new bundle of joy, with all of the joy and tears that occur. This coverage is more about the intimacy with your family during this exciting time before and after the actual birth occurs. All of the sessions will be set up before you are a busy new Mom, so they are already on the calendar and I will come to your house for each one.

Please visit the new webpage for this unique opportunity or ask for a brochure with more information! This Baby Plan is a perfect idea for the Bride and Groom who plan on starting a family, since MP offers gift certificates in any denomination! Individual Portrait Sessions are always available separately.

The new Green trend makes me happy if only because there are more and more green options everywhere I look. From my super awesome brown canvas frame and album bags (Wegmans plastic bags in the winter were just tacky anyway)… to my new line of framing and albums, there have been a lot of changes in my studio this year. I am the first Photographer in Rochester to switch from DVDs to Jump Drives (USB drives) for the High Resolution image files! I’ve been scouring conference trade shows for these, and EVERYONE still promotes DVDs! It has been a frustrating journey, but I found some pretty brown ones to put my logo on!

Another awesome change was to Sustainable Framing! Not only is my framer less than 2 miles from my house, but I FTP the images to them and they print and frame whatever I need! I secretly call it the “stay in my jammies” special, because my buddy, Pat, does all the work! He found me a special line of frames that are reclaimed from: wood shavings, chips, sawdust, wasted trim, pallets, construction materials etc. The frames are a solid material with a smooth, fine texture! A bonus is that Pat is awesome at picking out mats and frames and I am terrible at it…. I just tell him to do whatever he wants and he always makes me happy that I delegated to the expert.

Next up is my GORGEOUS and BEAUTIFUL  and LUXURIOUS new eco-friendly album! Can you tell I’m a little excited about it????? I’ve been wanting to order a sample from this company since I first began looking into albums. I’ve been too cheap to do it and also too afraid to pick the images to go into it. I needed images worthy of the album, and realistically I knew that I didn’t have the clientele that spring for such an album. Worse still was that I knew that past clients would want it as much as I did! I was OK teasing me, but not them. Well, now is the time to offer this one of a kind, handmade, eco-friendly album with Japanese book cloth covers and a custom presentation box to store it in. All of my other albums are delivered in a cardboard box. OK, a fancy cardboard box, but still. So, I will also offer the handmade clam shell box as an upgrade to my regular albums as well.

Well, this post is way too long and I still have a LOT more to say, so I’m ending it here with a few images….