maternity
These dear friends of mine are getting so close to meeting their sweet Hazel girl any day now, but very possibly today! I LOVED how this session turned out. So dreamy and beautiful. I mean, Christopher was serenading his ladies with some Lumineers tunes, does it get any better?
Aren't these two so cute? Annika and Daniel are such kind and beautiful people inside and out. I've known Annika for about a year now and she is so lovely and encouraging. We did a portrait session on Sauvie Island last year. She's become a dear friend since then and I was thrilled when she told me they were expecting their second child and I couldn't wait to document this season of life and expectation for them. We were able to squeeze in a maternity session on one of our first beautiful and warm Portland days this winter at the always stunning Hoyt Arboretum. You'd think it was summertime from all the sunshine in these pictures!
Enjoy these pictures of Annika and Daniel and their baby to be :) Congratulations you guys!
My cousin Brian and his beautiful wife are expecting their baby girl in just a couple weeks! I love seeing our big family growing and welcoming the new spouses and babies is so wonderful and makes me so happy. As I've lived away from Seattle for the past seven years or so and am not able to see my family as much as I would like, I treasure the time I get to spend with them even more.
We had a ton of fun exploring this park on the island that I had never been to in all my years living on Bainbridge and then enjoyed the beautiful June-uary day at Fay Bainbridge State Park for the tail end of our shoot. I really cannot get enough of the Northwest especially when the weather is downright perfect.
Brian and Jen, you are going to be amazing parents and I cannot wait to snuggle your little girl when she arrives! Yay!
Is it crazy that it is 2015 now or what? Time is flying. I am so behind on blog posts from 2014 so keep your eyes peeled for a bunch of posts soon!
This past week with time off for the holidays and a little time at home free of travel I've had a lot of time to reflect on this past year. I actually laughed a bit when Facebook posted "Shannon's year" a highlight of my posts from the year and it was a collection a lot like the one I'm about to post below. It was a collection of pictures that I had taken of friends, couples, pups, baby bumps, and tiny fingers and toes. My year was filled with your year and memories and I loved it. I love being able to freeze beautiful moments of time for people to look back on and remember. There is so much joy in the remembering.
““A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered.” ”
I am so absolutely grateful for all the people that trusted me to document some of their most important moments. It's been an incredible year full of so much beauty and wonder and I'm so stinkin' grateful. It fills me up!
Speaking of gratitude, one of my goals for this next year is to focus on gratitude. I find myself sliding down a slippery slope when my perspective shifts away from gratitude and towards comparison and self-criticism and other negative spaces. It's no good and I want to keep myself in the healthy lens of gratitude this year. Even in the darkest of moments, there is always always always something to be grateful for.
So thank you friends for journeying with me this year and encouraging me. You give me so much to be grateful for.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can't wait to see what 2015 holds.
Here are some of my favorite images from 2014. Enjoy!
With love,
Shannon
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
It turns what we have into enough and more.
It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
If you've made it this far, thank you for reliving this amazing year of photography with me. Happy New Year to you friends, cheers to another amazing year, 2015 is going to be good. I just know it.
I spent the afternoon with the Estabrooks a couple weeks ago at Cathedral Park capturing some moments in the beautiful golden hour sunlight. Liz and Jonathan are wonderful people and I'm so lucky to be in community with them both. I was honored to take pictures of their beautiful family. Their son Samuel is the cutest and so fully of energy and life. I got quite the workout running around the park getting pictures of him. They don't tell you that photography is a workout but I assure you, it is! We were lucky to book a session when Liz's mom was visiting from England, so you'll see a few pictures with her in here, too.
Also, Liz and Jonathan happen to be expecting another baby (!), so we were able to take some maternity pictures as well. Congratulations you two! I'm so happy for your growing family!
