1st Year Professional Photos

We had two photographers take Natalie's 1 year photos. We had already paid for a photo session with Lisa at Real Life Images as part of our 3 session package for her newborn, 6 month and now 1 year photos -- newborn and 6 mo photos have been posted previously (click on the "Professional Photos" link on the right side). I like Lisa's photos but in all honesty, they are just way to expensive and we don't get a CD of the images. We couldn't justify buying her photos anymore (although I like her photos, I should have looked around more to get a better deal before going with her for the newborn photos but Natalie was 6 weeks old and I was tired!). Part of our package was to get three 5x5 for free (although I suppose they were paid for as part of our sitting session) -- one from each session. So I wanted to go through with this session so we could get those three photos. Natalie's Oma also made her a tutu which I thought would be cute for the photos since her Oma is a ballerina. The photos turned out really well although as you'll see below, I much prefer the ones we got from the next photographer.

Here are thumbnail photos from Natalie's session with Real Life Images. We decided to go with image 2720 for her 5x5 of the 1 year (for newborn, I chose one of her laying down; for 6 mo, one of her sitting, so for 1 year, I thought it would be cute seeing her squatting/trying to stand). We also decided to get a 8x10 of image 2735. Unfortunately, clicking to make them bigger is not working. I separated the thumbnail photos she sent into two sheets to make it a little better. Here's a link also that should help: http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=32d95943b7&view=att&th=1220e59a38ed67ad&attid=0.1&disp=inline&zw

We decided to try Laura Brett's photos as she's done a fabulous job on photos for a number of friends. I absolutely love how they turned out!!!! And we're able to buy a CD of the images plus a number of other prints including a storyboard of 4 cake photos for significantly less than we would have paid at Real Life Images for only the proofs (printed versions) and a number of prints. We definitely plan to continue using Laura Brett and I'm already planning to set up our Darling Child #2's newborn photos. Although she's in High Point, Laura drove out to our house to take Natalie's photos. It worked out perfectly. And the cake pictures are wonderful! We actually had Laura take Natalie's photos before Real Life Images. During Laura's session, I discovered that Natalie likes to play with and eat the cake frosting but does not like to touch the actual cake. At the Real Life session, before I got a chance to tell Lisa this, she had already put Natalie's fingers in the cake to encourage her to get into it -- that was the end of Natalie getting into the cake photos (as can be seen in the photos above). She just wanted the cake off her fingers!

Here's a Sneak Peak of the photos Laura took. Unfortunately, all the photos will not be available on-line for a long period of time so I'm only providing the link to her blog. We are extremely happy with them.

http://laurabrettphotography.com/blog/2009/06/child-photography/first-raleigh-child-and-family-photographer-laura-brett/

Enjoy!