Family means the world to me. Just ask my husband. There are times he’d like to pack me and the girls up and move us far away. But he knows I’d be clinging to all our family here in CNY so there’s no point in trying.
These two families represented are both family to me and sisters-in-laws to each other. As a CNY Christmas Photographer, I love to take care of my family especially at Christmas time. Both these beautiful ladies are grandmothers, and when they saw the portraits of my own mother with several of her grandchildren baking in the kitchen, they both contacted me separately for their own.
However, each group had their own unique situation that wouldn’t allow them to hold the session on the dates I had reserved for my CNY Christmas Photography sessions. One family had a baby born in the preemie stage that required extra caution for the baby’s safety. Which, as a newborn photographer, I totally respect. The second family had to literally fly to Florida and pick up their sweet granddaughter and fly home. Grandma wasn’t home 15 hours before she was back in my studio with all 8 grandchildren to bake some chocolate chip cookies. And it was only 1.5 hours drive to my studio for her two-car caravan trip two days before Christmas. It was an early treat for me to spend it with so many cousins!
This is what I mean, when I say family is everything. These are the people God has placed in my life to love and care for. You often see me blast my social media pages with portraits, snap shots and model sessions of my families. This not only fills their walls and hearts with portraits to love forever, but mine as well.
And out of all the materialistic items in this world, a photograph of family is what will last the longer. If there is one thing you should invest in is a good photographer. If you are in need of a CNY photographer, please don’t hesitate to call me for the experience I off and availability (315) 297-1816 or you can email me at ShelaynaLynn@aol.com.
Christmas Kitchen Mini Session | CNY Christmas Photographer
Ho Ho Ho!! My sister once referred to me as Santa Clause. It was August and I was at a Farmer’s Market buying sunflowers for a friend’s birthday. I do like to give gifts and eat cookies, so I guess there is some truth to it.
As a CNY Christmas Photographer, I try to come up with a new set up each year. This can be challenging, because props and backdrops aren’t cheap. My first thought was to find three backdrops I really liked, and then let the masses decide. Well, I found one that I had to have, deliberated a couple of days over what size before I finally purchased it.
My Christmas Kitchen has received many compliments. I am a tad envious that my own kitchen isn’t as nice. You may have noticed that I used my own mom and nephews and nieces as my promo shoot and we literally made chocolate chip cookies during our session. That was fun, you can read all about it for yourself!
I had several families travel for my CNY Christmas photography session. One family came from Syracuse, one from Watertown and another all the way from Albany! I love that people travel just for my service.
During our sessions, my clients were able to use pre-made dough and create either sugar cookie cutouts, or gingerbread men. Flour tossing was optional, some chose to toss dough. The children really got into the mixture and enjoyed stirring the batter, cutting out their cookies and decorating the finished product that I had available.
There were many options on who was in the portrait. Some chose grandma, some included mom and dad. Other’s were tickled that they could watch their children have a great time working together and they didn’t need to be in between them.
I will be offering these CNY Christmas Photography sessions again next year. The best way to learn about them to get your family booked is to be on my email list. It was a lot of fun, and mom wasn’t responsible for the aftermath that the kids created!
Grandma’s Baking Session | CNY Christmas Photographer
My mom has 19 grandkids. Two more will be born by February. We couldn’t get them all for one portrait, but we collected as many of the 4 and under as we could get. Honestly, when I schemed up this session, I thought I was going to have to beg my mom to participate. She’s not one to be in front of the camera. Surprisingly, all I had to do was ask.
If you know my mom, you’ve probably have had an opportunity to taste her chocolate chip cookies. They are amazing. We grew up eating them about every day. Being a family of 11 mouths to feed, we made a double batch of these sweet goodies about every other day. True story.
All the grand babies have carried on the tradition of loving grandma’s cookies. So, I asked mom, “Would you do a photo shoot with all the little grandchildren, while making chocolate chip cookies?” As you can clearly see in the portraits, the kiddos are doing the pouring and mixing and the eating of the chocolate chips. They eagerly wanted to pitch in (literally) each ingredient. I think we broke three eggs before we got started. (I broke the first one!)
Osceola, (last one on the right) stood straight and tall smiling shouting “Cheese!” the entire session. I tried a couple of time to get him to pour/add ingredients but he politely shook his head “no” and kept going with his big grin and enthusiastic smile.
As happy as we all were to capture all the chaos, we were a little sad too. Theoden and Colton couldn’t be with us, so we got them on facetime all the way from Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I had told Cassandra about the venture we were going on and she made sure to make contact right before we got started.
The other sweet face we were missing was Carter. I know he loves to bake, because he has helped me several times in the kitchen. But his schedule didn’t line up with when we could get it altogether. He would have added a whole new level of fun to our party!
If you bake with your children/grandchildren this session is for you! It is scary enough teaching children how to bake and be safe (I know I taught nine or more middle schoolers and thought I was going to die on day one!) These moments are precious. Allow me to create the ‘safe’ atmosphere and you will have memories that will last forever.
