“It has been over 10 years since our family has taken a family portrait… 16 years ago our family suffered a great loss, losing a brother and six months later a sister… so taking a family photo comes with a range of emotions and is not as easy as it seems.  It comes with heartache, knowing we are not all there, but it comes with triumph, knowing that God has given us the strength to keep smiling… thanx to Marlene for capturing such a beautiful time and moment in our lives, we feel so blessed to have this portrait and make more memories…”  Analisa Hruda from the Alvina and Don Heinrichs Family, Mitchell Manitoba

On August 25th I had the pleasure of photographing a beautiful family.  Photographing several young children, who would rather play and run around and enjoy the gorgeous weather was a challenge – but, they always seem to co-operate for the perfect portrait!  :-)

The first family we photographed were Analisa, Matt and their boys…

Next it was Tammy and Charles and their lovely girls…

The children were tiring, so we went indoors to photograph the large family group…

Next we photographed mom and her daughters… hard to say which is the mom!

And then the lighting was perfect for outdoor portraits and so we photographed Jewel and Mike and their children…

I so often hear from people that they want to wait to have their portrait taken for one reason or another. “My child is missing a tooth.”  ”I want to lose 10 lbs.”  ”I’ll wait till they’re in school.”  ”We’re finishing up a renovation and our budget is going towards that.” And they miss out on how beautiful their children are at each stage of their life.

I recently chatted with a client that had her 2 year old daughter in for her portrait 4 years ago.  She told me that she absolutely loved that photograph of her – because “I’ll never have that two year old again if I wouldn’t have had the portrait taken. You think you will remember what she was like at that age, but you don’t – and the photograph reminds you.” Beautifully said!

Yesterday, the day (and night) after her grad, Chloe and Mom came in to view the photographs.   I used Enya’s ‘Only Time‘ song to show the portraits in a slide show.

“Viewing the photos brought tears to my eyes.  Marlene brought out such beauty in Chloe that only a mother knows is there!  So hard to choose.  Thanks Marlene!” Sandra Kihn, Steinbach, Manitoba

 

“It didn’t take very long to take the pictures for my grad.  But it took us so long to choose which ones we wanted.  We said:  keep, keep, keep, over and over again!  It took us a very long time.  We’ve finally chosen some and are still trying to figure out how we can get more!  Marlene makes the session very enjoyable and gets the best out of what you’ve got! Chloe Kihn

And here they are – my favorites from the session…

Mom brought some lovely daisies from a garden and we used them – I think this is my favorite of them all!

Thanks Chloe and have a great summer at the lake!

“I chose to have Marlene photograph my family because I have friends who have taken pics here and they look amazing!   Marlene made us feel completely at ease and I have to say that the portrait experience was just awesome.   I love our portraits because they capture our family – they look natural and very much us!” Tracey, Cody & Denver Braithwaite, Grunthal, Manitoba

Families are so precious.  And having beautiful artwork on your walls to show how close your family is, is priceless.   When Tracey called a short while ago she wanted to have a family portrait taken quite quickly.   I asked her what was most important to her about these photographs.  She told me that she had recently lost both her father and mother (I believe within a 6 month period) and she wanted to show her boys how important family is and to display these on her wall, for them to see and be reminded that they are the most important thing to her.   She was also going to be moving out of province as soon as school ended, and that was the urgency.  Cody had recently broken his leg and was in a cast, but that didn’t stop us!    Denver was a little imp and kept hamming it up for the camera.  I love the emotion and closeness I see here.   More portraits from the session…

Thank you, Tracey, for trusting me to create some artwork for your little family.  Good luck in the future!

Do you see a trend?    Both of them were photographed on my unique “Western” set.   This was ‘built’ in 2006 on the exterior wall of my garage and has proven to be quite popular – especially for my high school senior grads!   And, Colleen was no exception – we needed to use this set for her grad portraits.    Why did I say that Colleen is ‘one of a kind’???   Well, look at her awesome, unique grad dress.  It was perfect for her and she had red highlights put into her hair to match!

We started off with photographing her on my new Faux Copper Tile panels set in the studio…

I loved how much fun she seemed to be having!   Perhaps she just knew what to do in front of the camera, as she is taking photography in school.

It was windy outdoors, but I didn’t mind – it was perfect for her dress and flowing hair!   This next image is my absolute favorite!   Check out what the wind did – amazing…just amazing!

Kyle is the next brother to graduate and I’ve got to wait 3 years for that!!!!!  This ‘Western’ set will be even more weathered by then!  lol

Colleen – I can’t wait to see your portfolio!