The Ultimate Dallas Family Photographer Project: Designing our Heirloom Albums

There’s a saying that goes, “the cobbler’s children have no shoes.” As a photographer, in my case this refers more to family photos. Thank goodness, we have always prioritized having our photos taken. While I’m amazing with other people’s children, I know that trying to capture our whole circus on my own with a tripod is virtually impossible. So we’ve captured the images and have a handful of favorites on our walls, but my shortfall: getting the albums designed and printed. So many years have gone by, and in my busy-ness with creating these gorgeous works of art for my clients, my own images have done exactly what I caution my clients about: they’ve sat on my hard drive untouched. For years. Always lingering on my to-do list, being pushed from one Sunday list to the next. I suspect that you can relate.

While my iPhone photos are a whole ‘nother project that I’ve yet to tackle, I’m so excited that I’ve ordered my family’s albums and they are going to be gorgeous. Thick, lay-flat albums, artfully designed (by me 😀) that will last for generations. It might take a few weeks before my lab reopens to actually print them and send them my way, but I’m absolutely thrilled to have checked it off of my list! Here’s a sneak peek of a few of my favorite family albums of ours!

The first one I designed - I started with most recent and moved backward in time - is our incredible family session with Jessie Hearn Photography that we photographed three days before our big move to Dallas. She captured my kiddos and their wild-at-heart spirits so perfectly, and I included so many collages of their sweet moments together and with each of us.

In 2018, we skipped the fancy field photos and did something completely different that perfectly captured our chaos of life with three kids ages 5 and under. I knew deep down that we weren’t in an age and stage that would be conducive to capturing anything remotely practical in an outdoor session - my boys were SO WILD in this stage - so we hired a friend and fellow photographer Susan Ryan Kalina to do a documentary “day in the life” session where we did all of our favorite things as a family at home - playing outside, playing “chase” in our house, and capturing our precious LONG bedtime routine. It was so perfectly US.

This one is from our amazing session with Rebecca Gould Photography back in 2017 at the VERY end of a cold fall in Chicago. I wanted to capture our session as close to Leila’s first birthday in late November as we could without literally freezing into blocks of ice!

2016 was the year of a zillion photos, and our family album is overflowing with cuteness - from our annual family photo session, this time with my friend Vlad from Yofi Photography, and then a maternity modeling session for the insanely talented Cherise Kiel Photography from Arizona, and Leila’s newborn session with Bethany Hope Photography - a true artist. If you haven’t noticed, our family has used a TON of different photographers. I love learning through experience from the many talented artists and business owners around me, and there are so many whom I admire for all sorts of different reasons. So our photos shift in style, from more posed, to more lifestyle, with lighter edits and darker edits and everything in between!

If you’ve made it this far, I hope you enjoyed a peek into our family’s history. All of these albums will be printed in stunning 12 by 12 inch albums so that my kids will be able to soak up these sweet memories long after my hard drive (or my external hard drive or the cloud) crashes.

And if you are reading this, thinking about how many images are still crowding your hard drive and you’d like to outsource this task, I just might be your girl. Whether I use the photographs from your family or newborn photo session with ME, or you have a print release from another photographer but need help from someone more hands-on who can help you to create these family heirlooms, I’d love to help. I offer either a simpler design service for ordering your album yourself or you can work with me to custom design your heirloom album that will be ordered through my world-class professional printing lab with lay-flat pages, archival inks and gorgeous leather, linen or velvet cover options for the cover. Albums will not ship until businesses reopen (since my print lab is part of the “non-essential” shut-down).

The beauty of this service is that it can be done completely remotely, so whether you’re in Dallas, the midwest or on the east or west coast, I’m happy to work with you without any risk to your health or mine!

If you’d like more information about this service, please email me at rachelfriedman1@gmail.com.

Stay well,

Rachel

Rachel is a fine art Family, Maternity and Newborn photographer in Plano, Texas, serving the entire Dallas Fort Worth metroplex via studio portrait sessions and outdoor on-location photography.

Reflections on an Incredible Work Retreat {Dallas Motherhood Photographer}

Last month, I had the amazing privilege of attending a retreat with The Motherhood Anthology, an amazing photography education platform led by three phenomenal photographers, Jenny Cruger, Allison Craig and Kim Box. As I am coming up on my business’s five year anniversary, I’m working hard to always be improving. Whether it’s pushing myself creatively, fine tuning my art, learning about the latest innovations in heirloom artwork and prints or improving my client experience, there is always so much to learn.

It was such a privilege getting to tour and utilize Jenny’s beautiful studio and field in Franklin, Tennessee - she has an incredible space and an incredible heart and was a joy to learn from. We had two styled shoots that I’ve shared below - the first was with this precious family celebrating their son’s first birthday. I loved having the opportunity to get creative and think outside the box a bit, playing with double exposures, reflections and more.

Our second shoot was in the studio, and it was so helpful getting some guidance from Allison about her technique for achieving gorgeous backlit images. We had the most stunning maternity model for this session - she’s welcoming her rainbow baby this spring after years of trying, and she was seriously the most patient person as all ten of us took turns photographing her in three different outfits and set ups.

We also got to chat with Kim about her gorgeous albums {Indie Print Co} and view so many beautiful samples of all of their different cover fabrics and styles, and we got to spend time with Hope of Brass and Boxes, strategizing about SEO, blogging, social media and more.

But more important that all of the above, I connected with so many incredible woman, all mothers, photographers and business owners who are at many different stages in their journey, and together we sat and stayed up into all hours of the night discussing our challenges, our victories, our ideas and how we can better serve our clients and grow our businesses. We captured updated headshots for each other too, so I thought it would be fun to introduce you to my new work village.

Pictured from left to right: Ryane Rice based in Birmingham, Alabama, Esther Ziegler of Esther Ziegler Photography based in Springfield, Missouri and Bev Wade of Bev Wade Images in Memphis, Tennessee. Photos above taken by the fabulous Jen Godshall, pictured below.

Again, from left to right: Jen Godshall of Jen Godshall Photography in Sarasota, Florida, Lisa Tait - my roommate and co-pilot of our rental care - of Lisa Tait Photography in Toronto, and Jessie Roffer of Jessie Roffer Photography in Tampa, Florida.

And then below, from left to right: Heather Mohr of Heather Mohr Photography in Edwardsville, IL/St. Louis and Erin Davison Boring of Erin Davison Photography in Northeast Ohio. Not pictured is Brooke Hebert-Tennant of Petite Magnolia Photography in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It was such an incredible weekend with this crew in Tennessee. I can’t wait to see how we all grow and improve in the year to come and am so glad I invested in myself for this experience with The Motherhood Anthology.

Maternity + Newborn + Baby's First Year {Dallas Baby's First Year Photographer}

Pregnancy is such a magical time. You find out that you're expecting a baby, and you imagine what life will look like in 9 months. It get be hard to imagine, whether it's your first child about to rock your world, or you just can't wrap your mind around loving any child as much as you love your first (spoiler alert: it's impossible NOT to. Love multiplies exponentially. But I digress...). I want to talk briefly about the less than magical parts. The bloating. The weight gain. The nausea, vomiting, fatigue, aches, pains, heart burn and more. It's not necessarily the nine months of your life where you feel like you look and feel your best (unless you are a magical unicorn of pregnant women, then you can just disregard this whole paragraph. And don't tell any other pregnant women, cuz they might hate you just a little.).

I will tell you - when I was pregnant with my third child, Leila, I felt like a mack truck. I gained over 50 pounds, much of which was in my arms, face and butt, and my former basketball pregnant woman self from my first pregnancy felt like a dream. But you know what? I did photos anyway, and they are my favorite. Knowing it was *most likely* my last pregnancy, I am SO glad I captured that time. Both for me and for my kids, and especially for Leila, my only daughter. This period in life is fleeting, and while I can only hope that this will be the only time in my life that I see those numbers on the scale, I know that I'll look back and not see my size, but the wonder. The excitement for the future. Maternity photography is so special that way.

Something I loved about this session with Carly and her family is that while they included her pregnant belly, we didn't necessarily stress over incorporating the bump. She wanted to capture the special time as a family of three before her son's world was rocked.

Once their gorgeous girl arrived and everyone was fully recovered, we did an in-home lifestyle newborn session in their Highland Park home. Carly signed up for my Luxury Baby's First Year Plan, so their family planned for three sessions over the course of baby’s first year. This is so easy for my client families because it guarantees priority scheduling on my calendar and a reminder to schedule baby’s sessions as they grow!

Rachel is a premier studio and on-location maternity newborn photographer based in Plano, just north of Dallas. She serves the DFW metroplex, including but not limited to Dallas, Frisco, Plano, Addison, Highland Park, Uptown, Flower Mound, Southlake, McKinney, Allen and beyond. If you'd like to book a maternity session, please be sure to contact me ASAP, as these are best photographed between 30 and 35 weeks. If you’re expecting a baby (whether in your first, second or thrid trimester) or already holding your brand new little baby, you can book your newborn photography session either by emailing me directly at rachelfriedman1@gmail.com or by using the Contact button below to fill out a contact form.