Family Portraits at SPAC and First Birthday Portraits

Ahhhh, it’s outdoor family portrait season again! I love our outdoor family sessions, and one of my favorite portrait locations in Saratoga Springs is in Spa State Park near SPAC and the Hall of Springs. There are so many gorgeous areas filled with beautiful greenery, pretty textures, and curvy pathways that photograph so beautifully.

I was excited to see this family of five for their portrait session. Their littlest, David, recently turned one and we did a cute little birthday setup at the end with a vintage wooden high chair and a mess-free wooden cake!

This family has been coming to me for years for their portrait sessions (ever since little miss Julia turned one!), and I love seeing how comfortable the kids are with me and the camera now. They had so much fun laughing and running around, and we captured some of their favorite-ever family portraits that I know they are going to enjoy for many, many years!

The wooden cake! How adorable is this?!?!

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Summertime Family Portraits at SPAC in Saratoga Springs

One of the best parts of quarantine has been spending more time at home & out in our yard. This is the first summer that Grayson is mobile and able to walk around & really play outside in the yard. One of the big perks of being home and out in the yard more (rather than just rushing in and out from work & the grocery store!) is that our neighbors are home and hanging in their yard more, too! With the slower pace, quarantine has brought so much connection to so many families. It’s definitely a silver lining to all of this!

Grayson asks us nearly every day to “go play with the girls”, and he loves talking about them and the cool toys in their backyard. He’s especially obsessed with their dump truck & sand box! He listens for their voices when he’s outside, and he’s always the first one to comment when he hears them outside playing. These kids have had snacks together on the driveway, blown bubbles through the fence, and watched the leaf truck come and pick up our leaves. They have shrieked in excitement when the fire hydrant sprayed all over the road when getting flushed, waved to the school bus that comes by every morning, jumped in a kiddie pool together, and shared countless homemade baked goods from one porch to the other.

It’s been a blast, and Grayson loves having these new friends to play with next door!

Naturally, we celebrated the end of quarantine with a socially distant portrait session at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, which is only 2 miles from our house! This family enjoys attending many shows at SPAC every summer, and it wound up being the perfect backdrop for their family portraits.

Genevieve and Lucy were all smiles and they loved the attention of the camera! They enjoyed skipping & dancing, and we shared lots of giggles during their session.

This portrait of the sisters together is everyone’s favorite, and it’s going to be a beautiful canvas for them to enjoy at home! I can’t wait for it to arrive back from my photo lab, and I know Grayson will love watching me unwrap it from the box and be so excited when he sees his friends in the picture. He’s always my little assistant when it comes to photo deliveries, and he’s going to love being my assistant for this extra special delivery when it comes in!

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Family Portraits at the Hall of Springs in Saratoga Spa State Park

Are you ready for one cute kid, and an amazingly well behaved dog???

Johnny turned one, and we celebrated with family portraits at the Hall of Springs at Saratoga Spa State Park. They brought their fur baby, a goldendoodle named Ozzie, and we had so much fun. Going through their portraits afterwards, I had so many favorites and couldn’t even believe how their dog just POSED in a few of the photos! Soooooo cute. Scroll down to see!

These two are going to be best buds…

The most perfect & fun family portrait — with the dog looking right at the camera!

One of the things that I love about this location is that the covered archways make the perfect spot for portraits — on a sunny day, a rainy day, a cloudy day. With a nice roof over our heads and the white marble floors beneath us to brighten everything up, gorgeous brick archways and plenty of greenery just beyond us, it’s such a beautiful backdrop for photos!