My baby girl Scarlett

My baby Scarlett is now 11 weeks old. You might think I'll take lots of pics and post a lot about her on my blog/FB. Turns out I never finish sorting her pictures out and picking the best one of each set never ends, so they haven't made their appearance on blog/FB yet. I mentally wrote a blog post in my head all these times, but never got to sit down and write it down properly, and it's been 11 weeks already! So, now with my short-term memory loss from postpartum survival period, I've forgotten what to say about most of that 11 weeks now.

So here is whatever left now...

1 week

2 weeks

3 weeks

4 weeks

5 weeks

6 weeks

7 weeks

8 weeks

9 weeks

 Before the baby was born, I thought about a strategic photography plan to take her pictures periodically. I couldn't figure out what is the best system though..  Once a day to make time lapse series of her growing up? Or take the same pose/style every week for comparison? Or try all the fancy baby poses I like each time or etc etc.

After she's born, it turns out I didn't have to think too hard.  With the baby schedule and time crunch, there is not much option actually. Any picture I can take is already a lot of effort. I ended up not being able to reach for my DSLR camera until she's 1 weeks old, and that's because I pushed myself to do it before I missed it. Since then, the plan just resolves itself into weekly photoshoot. Now I commit to take one good photo of her a week. We have lots of camera phone photos of her in very low light conditions. Although they are good sweet moments, but it's a shame if all I have of her are grainy photos.    

And fancy super-cute newborn poses? No way. I was sleep deprived and for each photoshoot, it caused me one nap session and more work to soothe her and tend to her as I manipulated her comfort zone.  So less effort goes into her photos than those of my clients. Photographing my own baby is way harder than doing my clients' photoshoots.  There is only me to feed her, change her,  put her to sleep, photograph her meanwhile, soothe her back to sleep, change positions, soothe her again etc etc.   So most of her pictures are simple. I just laid her on the bed and get one good shot quick to stick with my weekly photo commitment. And with that rate, I didn't have a lot of good pictures in the past 11 weeks. Also, once  I am more willing to be creative, newborn flexible period  (the 1-2 weeks) was over, so I couldn't put her in cute tight poses anymore. Oh well.

I regretted not doing the photoshoot at the hospital on the first day.  I thought I can do it myself. I even brought my big girl camera to hospital, but we just packed it back home at the end. I still thought I can do it myself once we got home, but I didn't even want to get out of my bed and I was running behind in everything with the new baby schedule. The most difficult are the family photos. My husband and I took different shifts, so we were never in the same picture till these days. And we were walking dead zombies during the first few weeks. I should have hired another photographer to get it done. This one above is one of the very few ( < 5) family photos we have now. 

2 months old baby Christopher

Baby Christopher is last minute photoshoot before my due date.  I am already on maternity leave, and this photoshoot got scheduled within couple days of enquiry just so we will make it before I'm in labor.  After the shoot, I'm not ready to go into labor until processing is done. I felt quite relieved and ready for baby after finally delivered the photos. Now I'm ready.  :D

One of the reasons I like doing photoshoots is meeting new people. I learn a lot from everyone. Each and everyone is different.  Being a full-time engineer, I spend more time on computer than with people. Photoshoots allowed me to meet new people with very interesting backgrounds. Plus, newborn photoshoots gave us time to chat while waiting for baby to calm down, be fed and changed. So, I always like hanging out with the families during photoshoots, especially now that I'm expecting my own.

In fact, I realized that when I am expecting, the baby classes we took taught nothing more compared to what I already learned from my photoshoots. Thanks to all those amazing moms & dads, who shared with me all baby knowledge during our photoshoots.

Maternity photography

Now that I'm expecting a baby myself, I've been quite impressed by the women who have the courage to do maternity photoshoots.

I have imagined that I'll try all sort of fancy maternity poses when I'm pregnant, but turns out I don't want to be taken a picture of for the .  Doing self-portraits is already hard enough, but with a big belly, moving back and forth between poses and checking the camera is not fun.

Plus, something I haven't thought of in my imaginary maternity photos... I am so short that my maternity photos don't look arty at all. I look like a bowling pin instead.

4 months old Thomas

4 month olds are my favorite ever since Zac and Isabelle's photo session,. 4 month babies are chubby and handful that I want to keep squeezing their chubby hands and legs. They start to have their personalities, big wide eyes with full of energies. They can be cheered.  Yet, not old enough yet to turn over or run around like toddlers to photograph. But sleeping baby poses are not easy for 4 months old, so if you want super-cute, irresistible sleeping baby photos, newborns are the best time for that.

Thomas is such a happy baby; easily cheered up and all smiles. His parents are super nice to me since I told them that I'm 4 months pregnant. 

Wesley family

Dylan and Logan

This 2 year old Dylan is super cute. Look at his smile.
His little brother Logan is only ~7 days old.
Their parents are very easy-going and flexible with the photo shoot.

LoneLone family

This is the first photoshoot this year. I have been taking a really long break with photography due to traveling almost every month lately and busy at work. 

LoneLone is a very happy kid, all smiles and dances the whole time.  It made us happy to be around him. And very friendly too. Even my husband, who doesn't usually fall for baby boys, said 'If his parents don't want him anymore, I'll take him away'. And he was seriously missing LoneLone that night after the photoshoot because LoneLone came give him a couple hugs out of his own will. LOL!

  

Beyond the fall

 It's officially (past) fall now, and leaves are on the ground. This year, I haven't carried my camera in my purse everyday like before because I've been abusing my purses that way.

So I've been putting off the fall photo walk for past few weeks even though a friend gave me heads up that yellow trees are in their prettiest shape.  While I procrastinated,  I've been thinking whether leaves turn from (green to yellow to red to fall) or (green to red to fall) or (green to yellow to fall) to time my fall photo walk for perfect color. :-)

And when I finally stepped out, most yellow trees are empty now :-( Eek! I want to beat myself in the head for procrastinating.  Anyway, I need something for next year, right?  Now there is this sea of yellow and red leaves everywhere.

Yellow:

And this year I'm really obsessed with yellow. 

Random "yellow fever"

Now red:

Yellow and red

How many types of different leaves did you see in my photos here?

Art in Paradise

I've been busy and lazy, and don't even want to think about picking up the camera.  I didn't even take my camera around on my last trip to Thailand, except for one day to Pattaya and one day of wedding.

Enjoy the art from Art in Paradise interactive art museum in Pattaya, Thailand. No photoshop. Pure art!