Maternity & Newborn sessions are some of my favorite to shoot. I’ve had the privilege of capturing this milestone for several Phoenix, Scottsdale and other Valley of the Sun families this winter - many welcoming their first baby and other’s welcoming their second or third!

The studio offers a Maternity & Newborn Package for $250. This covers the session fees for both sessions as well as 25 custom birth announcements. Maternity sessions are generally scheduled at 30-34 weeks, but if you are closer to your due date, don’t hesitate to contact the studio to see if we have openings available. I know it’s sometimes hard to feel photogenic during your pregnancy, especially towards the end of it, but I’ve never photographed an expectant mother who regretted doing maternity portraits, but I have photographed newborns for moms who lamented that they didn’t do maternity sessions.

A common question for expectant moms is are we able to edit stretch marks. The answer is “yes.” For the most part we can reduce or remove the appearance of stretch marks on your belly. Don’t stretch marks stop you from capturing this time in your life!

Here are two images from a recent Maternity & Newborn session client.

I received a phone call from a client today with some questions about proper back-up of digital image files. She’s not the first client that has asked me for suggestions/advice about how to properly protect and preserve digital image files. I think this blog will be the perfect place to share my personal* preservation methods…

All of my images are stored on my system categorized by monthly folders. I just place all image files within each monthly folder and don’t worry about much categorization beyond that. Some special occasions, such as Christmas or other holidays will receive their own folder. Once a month is over with, I will back up each month onto a DVD (or two, if I’ve taken a lot of images that month.) These DVDs are then stored in a CD “binder” that holds gobs and gobs of CDs. These binders are stored in a safe location.

After you burn your DVD or CD of images, double check that your computer can read the files of the images on the disc. I’ve had one or two CDs that my system said burned properly, but that my computer couldn’t read.

As an additional layer of protection, you can burn two sets of back-up discs – one you store at your house and another that is stored at an off-site location, such as a relative or a good friend.

The best recommendation I can give is to not only back up your images but to also PRINT your favorite images from each month. My son loves to look at images in albums of friends and family (and of himself!) so I try to keep an album of recent pictures available for him to look through. This is especially important for him as we live a distance from his Grandparents and he loves to look at images of the relatives he only sees periodically.

Bottom line – don’t think that your images are safe on your hard drive without being properly archived in a secondary location. I’ve talked with many professional photographers who have spent thousands of dollars on image file retrieval from hard drives that crashed.

*Client images are backed up after each session to ensure that the highest level of preservation is maintained.

But still under construction - trying to figure out CSS coding is not my forte! Please bear with me!

My studio was over run by the cutest little boys on Thursday morning. We had a lot of fun being really silly. Three boys are a handful, no doubt, but I have to say that Mom & Dad have a good handle on reigning in the chaos.