Win one of these fabulous gifts to show off your family. Some fabulous jewelry, a purse to show of your beautiful children or an iphone case to take with you on the go!  Even if you haven’t had your pictures made by us we will happily use your picture and even edit it for you (assuming the quality meets printing criteria) to make of these if you are the winner!  How do you win? Comment ON THE BLOG! Like our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Diane-McKinney-Photography-Inc/112641618756381  and have two friends like our page and then put a comment on the facebook page naming you as the reason they liked us!  The one with the most likes and all of the above WINS!  FYI.. All comments must be approved before they will show on the blog due to antispamware on the website.  The winner will be announced on Mother’s Day by 5pm!!!  Good luck!

It’s now the middle of March! Spring is coming people!! Bring out the cute dresses, the flowers, and of course the warm sun! But speaking of Spring, I have come up with a cute photo shoot for the darling little ones that you guys have! The TEA PARTY SHOOT! I came up with this last year with my two girls, K and H. They were on spring break (or more of a summer break because it was in May…) and we decided to have a photo shoot! It turned in to the cutest tea party photo shoot! Vintage dresses, tea cups, and cookies included!

Thinking about exchanging your Easter pictures for tea party pictures (I’m going to!)? Be sure to contact us or add us on Facebook here/Google + here and send us a message! Don’t have kids yet? Pin this for the day you do!!! (My niece did xD)

The Meisenheimer family shoot was very cute. The Meisenheimer mother actually set up her shoot after she had emailed me to ask if I would be able to shoot her family’s portrait even though they had several little ones. I went on to tell her that of course we could because I am very good at head swaps. So just in case someone was blinking, yawning, or even sneezing, I could fix that. Which if you have a lot of kids under the age of 5 that’s sure to happen. I had never met Anna before but when I did meet her in the parking lot before the shoot, she had not one but TWO sets of twins with her! The first pair was one years old and the other set was 3 years old. So let’s just say mom has her hands full, in the least, and she was so skinny and pretty that you could never tell that four babies had come out of that body of hers! Anyway, they were exactly how I expected a family of twins to be. The twins were not at all alike! One would still and hold the flower while the other wanted to run off and eat every flower in sight! The littlest one had a little bit of a cold so he wasn’t feeling so great. The two older ones were having a terrific time and they were so adorable! They were having a great time running around picking flowers, looking for butterflies, and playing with my bubbles! We did manage to get two family pictures but I did of course have to do some head swaps. Whatever it takes to capture a perfect family portrait, I am more than happy to do! The thing I love the most about this shoot is the fact that it was very representative of what a family with two sets of twins would be: all chaos but fun, pure fun! I think the pictures, especially the ones of the kids playing, to me, represented the family more, but at the same time she still has something nice to put over the fireplace.

I recently shot a family portrait for the Camardella family. The Camardella family have the most adorable girls! I actually knew their little girls because they swim on the same swim team as my daughters so I had already had a lot of experience in taking pictures of them while they were in the pool because I take pictures during the swim meets. It was a delightful change to be able to take their pictures out of the water as well. Their mom scheduled the portrait because she wanted pictures of her daughters as well. They could not have been any cuter! They were all so different and yet so pretty! We went out to the park and played around by climbing trees and frolicked in the flowers as I took their pictures together as well as apart, so that they could all have portraits of their own! This was such a fun photo shoot and their mother is just so amazing!

The A Family was referred to me by my lovely niece by marriage. I did not have time to contact her and thank her for the referral but when I arrived to the shoot I found out that the A family was actually related to my niece which makes them family to me as well! We took pictures of the family all together and the mom had wanted some of her daughter in her sash from homecoming and a headshot for her yearbook senior portrait. It ended up turning into a mini-senior session! She was so beautiful! The younger daughter had been crowned home coming queen that year. She never expected to win so it was funny that after the game was rained out and the entire student body was sent inside to announce the winners, she came in wearing rain boots instead of heels. So when she won, she took her homecoming queen picture in rain boots to her delight and to her mother’s horror. So of course her mother brought her homecoming dress and we retook those pictures so that her mother had a picture of her beautiful daughter in her whole homecoming outfit. We did pretty well fitting in all those sessions into one big photo session I thought.  And don’t those parents make such beautiful girls?!!! Watch out boys! Here they come!

It’s a crazy time of year with all the family photography sessions, getting ready for Christmas cards and gift for relatives.  Add to it my gorgeous fall and Christmas weddings and I am one crazy photographer this time of year.  But for this family photo session I knew the W Family from a portrait shoot last year with her two little girls. Her youngest daughter was still a baby and her older daughter was in first grade! They were so cute together.  You could tell they were very loving sisters. The baby  was very nervous about being introduced to someone new which is pretty normal for that age. But still just adorable.  I was so excited when Mom emailed that they were looking for another session but this time a family portrait.  I couldn’t believe how much they grew in such a short time and grew to be even cuter as well! The baby had grown up so much.  She was smiley, playful, and definitely over any stranger anxiety that she had as a baby! She had so much fun during the photo shoot.  And you could tell she still adored her big sister and absolutely loved her Mommy!  She was all about her mommy.  And I just love the pictures of Daddy with the girls.  They start out being all about Momma but in the end we all become Daddy’s girl.  It was such a cute and beautiful shoot!

The H family emailed me about having a shooting their family portrait around Thanksgiving because all of their family was going to be in town and they wanted a whole family photo shoot! I shot this portrait on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and it was so wonderful. Their family has a lot of little kids under and around the age of 5. This means that there will be lots of head swaps. I know through experience that kids around the age of 5 mean lots of head swapping so I knew to be prepared! It was such a great portrait session. The kids were so adorable, especially the youngest little girl. She was so shy but eventually came out of her shell towards the end of the photo shoot. She was such a darling! I took some wonderful pictures of her with her grandmother, her family, and all of her cousins! This was such a wonderful family to spend my after Thanksgiving festivities!!!!

I am a little behind on my posting.  It’s that time of year but I didn’t want to forget anyone!  Kim and I met many years ago when our daughters were in pre-school. I was elated when Kim called me to shoot her family portrait. Arriving at the shoot, Kim and her two adorable girls were excited and ready. Kim’s husband on the other hand looked displeased with the event. I have found that most men including my own husband are never excited about having their picture taken. To comfort his dismay I informed him that it could be worse he could be married to me, a photographer!! That led me to tell the story about a time I found out that our oldest daughter was about to lose her front tooth. I immediately called a photographer friend of mine to see if she could squeeze my family in for our family portrait. It worked out great, she had an opening that weekend. Sunday morning I told my husband we were having our family portrait done that afternoon.  (He does better when he has a little more notice)  I got the look. ha ha!  Since I had originally wanted a Poppy Shoot this year but we had already missed it I made him a deal knowing that it was close to Father’s Day. I told him he didn’t have to be in the picture but as far as the girls were concerned, the picture WAS his father’s day gift, but in reality not being in the picture was his father’s day gift. ha ha! In his relief of that family portrait, moving forward, he has contently joined our family portrait shoots, with a smile.  I think Kim’s husband was very happy he wasn’t married to me that day.  ;  )  But look how cute they all are….  

I had originally met the wonderful Boulay family through their daughter’s senior portrait. Their daughter had found me online and liked my portfolio so she arranged for me to shoot her senior portrait. I was really excited to shoot her senior because their daughter was extremely creative. She wanted to be original and was not afraid to experiment with different poses or scenery. She was such a joy to shoot and I was excited when her family called me back to do the Boulay family shoot! They have a wonderful family that includes a beautiful mom, handsome dad, gorgeous fun daughter, and their sweet rescue dog named Dory, whom of which their daughter is smitten. They were such a fun family to shoot! I look forward to seeing them grow and taking more of their family shoots!

I have a dear friend who is also a photographer whom I have had the honor of being friends going on seven years.  Not only is she a great friend but an amazingly generous person in general. She is also generous with her time, thoughtfulness and always has an ear to lend if you need someone to talk to about things.  Her most recent endeavor is her gift of her passion for the Lord and share it with the war torn country of Rwanda.  To raise money for this mission trip she donated her time to her church to shoot family portraits of any members and donate all the proceeds to the mission trip.  I am happy to report they raised over $1300 for the trip.  I was only too happy to help shoot those wanting family photography along side her.  She set up two stations and we photographed families until there was no one left.  Here are some of the images I took that day.  I am just thrilled I could do something for her (and her church) for a change. Thank you Jennifer for being such an amazing friend!