The locations are idyllic—picture perfect Nebraska.

On Friday: a little piece of country in the city.

On Saturday: an old barn—red of course—with an empty loft, dusty light streaming in from the late afternoon sun. Then a wide-open pasture somewhere in Gosper County. Green as can be, the grasses high, the sun hot and low—the pollen thick.

Sad news for a girl who loves the outdoors in Nebraska in summertime: the summertime grasses in Nebraska do not like me.

My sneeze rate on Saturday reaches approximately three per minute, on average, which explains the roll of toilet paper my assistant/husband is carrying. (Also in his hands are a lasso, a cheap white foam board I use as a sun shade/reflector, a cowboy hat, and a beer. He’s quite a sight).

After a rather long hiatus on the photography and blogging front to start 2018, I dove back in headfirst over Memorial Day weekend, having booked a maternity photo session for my sister’s sister-in-law’s co-worker (word-of-mouth advertising should not be underrated, it seems), and trying to fit in engagement photos for my husband’s cousin (this was originally scheduled for mid-April, but we had to get a rain (well, blizzard) check on that one. Gotta love Nebraska weather). So back-to-back Friday and Saturday sessions it was! And we somehow still managed to fit in a canoeing trip with my family in between. Never let us be accused of letting the grass grow under our feet.

Part 1

Seaman Family Photos | Maternity

Although I have made zero effort to advertise my services (aside from this humble little blog) or attract new clients, they trickle in nonetheless. My first non-family (and non-family-of-family) were the Seaman’s, a family of three (now four!) from Grand Island.

Lisa scoped out the locations for us ahead of time, the charming Hall County Park in the southwest corner of Grand Island. Having driven up from Manhattan after a half day of work at my day job, I only got to check the park out for myself about an hour before I had scheduled the shoot and get some idea of where I could stage people and which features and props in the landscape would give me the best frames, seats, backdrops, etc.

Of course, the little bit of mental planning I was able to accomplish went out the window when we returned on scene with the family, because another photographer was there and had pretty much the same ideas I did.

Hall County Park is a popular place for pictures, apparently.

And for good reason: even the less obviously picturesque locations, like this rather bland bench we started out on, yielded some pretty great results, if I do say so myself.

Quite a lot of credit is due to my husband for the success of this session. Although I had grand intentions of being a very outgoing personality who could draw smiles both formal and candid while also adjusting camera settings, analyzing angles, and framing shots, it turns out that was kind of a tall order. Maintaining ebullience among people I don’t know—even people as nice as the Seaman family—is not an effortless thing, so while I had a few conversational prompts in my back pocket, I needed most of my mental energy for the actual taking of pictures.

I’m sure this gets easier as one becomes more comfortable handling a camera. In theory, anyway.

Fortunately, Josh was stuck with me for this one, since Grand Island was on the way to our final destination for the day. My naturally ebullient husband took the reigns on keeping that adorable smile on soon-to-be big brother’s face.

They bonded over discussions of snack food—they both love Cheetos, as it turns out. They’re basically besties.