Beautiful Milestone Portraits in our Saratoga Springs Portrait Studio

Baby milestone sessions are always such a treat, and I love when families bring their little babies to the studio for portraits to capture their smiles, their personalities, and all of their milestones. There is so much that happens between the newborn stage and the first birthday, and I love capturing that for families to slow down time and remember forever!

Rolling over, sitting up, grabbing their toes, and shyly showing off their gummy smiles and their brand new baby teeth. All of these are such fleeting moments during your baby’s first year, and they all deserve to be beautifully documented.

Giuliana joined me at our Saratoga Springs studio for her 6 month portrait session, and this itty-bitty girl fit into some of our tiniest outfits in the studio’s Baby Wardrobe. We chose adorable headbands for her to coordinate with the colors in her nursery and with her newborn portraits, and started off with a few portraits on the studio’s boho egg chair. (See more portraits on this springtime prop here!)

I love all of these milestone portraits, and I’m excited to share them on the blog today! I hope you enjoy this sweet baby girl’s milestone session as much as I did!

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Timeless Milestone Portraits for Baby Xander

Xander joined me at our Saratoga Springs portrait studio for his milestone session, and I loved capturing this sweet stage of sitting up, belly rolls, elbow dimples, and baby giggles. This is one of my favorite ages to photograph and I always love our milestone sessions that showcase your baby’s budding personality and their new skills that they are oh-so-proud of.

Your baby’s first year is an absolute whirlwind — and time seems to go especially fast if it’s your second baby, like Xander is! During these sessions we slow down time for just a moment and document their personality and this beautiful stage they are in.

From sitting up to tummy time, there are so many options with these portraits. They are the perfect transition between the newborn session and the first birthday cake smash, and we personalize the colors to fit your family’s style and decor.

Wondering what your baby should wear for their milestone portraits?

Let me help you!

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Glitter & Gloves: Pretty but fierce hockey portraits to celebrate a 7th birthday

I was so excited when Samantha’s mom reached out to plan her annual birthday portraits. She told me how Sammy had fallen in love with playing hockey this year, and she really wanted to plan an extra special birthday session for her daughter in her hockey gear with a Tutu du Monde dress.

Ummmm, YESSSSSSS!!!

Of course, I couldn’t resist adding a little extra sparkle and glitter.

We had so much fun incorporating her helmet, hockey sticks, guards, and pucks into the session. Sammy loved putting on her tough face and her fierce face, and kept bursting into giggles, too. It was truly the perfect session and such a blast to photograph!

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Inspired by this fierce and pretty hockey session? Pin this image or any from the post above!

A 6 month milestone session for baby Ella

Ella is one of our Baby Planners, and I loved seeing how much she has grown when she came to the studio for her 6 month milestone session! It’s always amazing to watch these little babies during the first year as they begin to master new skills and really come into their personalities, and Little Miss Ella was no exception. This girl is so happy & smiley, and she truly rocked her portrait session!

Ella LOVED hanging out on this tiny bed that we just added to the prop closet. Her favorite part was using it as a teething toy, hahaha! Once she realized she could fit the wooden rails in her mouth she didn’t want to let go, and it had us all cracking up watching how excited she was!

Then we did a few portraits on our big girl bed (a.k.a. the white fluffy adult sized bed!). Ella’s mama packed the cutest white onesie with lace eyelet sleeves, and I love how simple and classic it looked in this all white set up. The lace ruffles really made it special!

Have a favorite toy or doll? Be sure to bring it to your baby’s milestone session! These cuddle + kind dolls have been making an appearance in many of our sessions for the past year or two, and I love it when they’re the same size as the babies!

Ella’s mama and daddy’s favorite portraits were in this chair with the mauve romper from our studio closet. We probably only spent about 2 minutes in this set up, but Ella brought out all of the smiles and belly laughs for so many adorable portraits! Here are just a few favorites!

Baby Outfit Ideas | Wardrobe Inspiration for Your Baby's Milestone Portrait Session

You’re so excited!!! You just booked your baby’s milestone session and you can’t wait to capture their little smile, that tiny curl of hair, and those adorable chubby legs that you love to cover in kisses. These portraits are always some of my favorites

But wait a second… what does a baby wear to a milestone session?!?!

This is probably your first time dressing your baby for portraits (after all, they just wore a swaddle in their newborn photos!), but I’ve dressed hundreds of babies for their portrait sessions and I have plenty of ideas to make it easier for you.

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OUTFIT INSPIRATION FOR YOUR MILESTONE SESSION

Flaunt those itty bitty baby features that you love so much.

Babies are only this little for a little while, and their elbow dimples, chunky thigh rolls, and puffy little tummies are the cutest things ever about this stage. Show it off! I recommend avoiding dresses that cover the legs — instead, choose rompers for baby girls to give them room to move their legs and find their toes. For boys, wearing just a pair of pants to show that cute baby belly is so classic. Plus, you’ll see those photos and just want to smooch that perfect little belly!

There’s nothing more classic than a simple white onesie.

I did my son’s monthly photos in a white onesie, and I always suggest clients go for this look when they want a few simple and extremely classic portraits. They make some cute ones with ruffles and eyelet lace details on the sleeves for baby girls if you’re looking for something a little special, too!

Go for a pop of color against our all white studio!

Pale blue, lavender, aqua, and pink all look amazing against our white walls, couch, and bed!

Make sure baby can move freely.

Opt for fabrics with a little stretch so baby can reach, crawl, and wiggle. After all, they’ve been practicing all of these new skills so let them use their whole body and show us what they can do!

Go barefoot.

Yes, baby shoes are cute, but they don’t look cute in photographs because you can only see the soles of the feet. Let’s show off their toes instead!

Show some skin.

When they’re this little, baby boys & baby girls are oh so sweet with their cute little baby bellies and soft arm rolls. Don’t be afraid to have one of their “outfits” be just a diaper, diaper cover, or a pair of knit pants! We can always use a soft blanket to cover up, too — and to play peek-a-boo!

Ruffles & lace.

Both beautiful options in photographs. You can’t go wrong with these sweet feminine details.

Consider fabric textures and your baby’s sensitive skin.

Remember when you were a kid and your mom dressed you in a scratchy tulle dress or itchy wool tights? You were miserable. Let’s give your baby the best shot at a happy session by making sure they are cool, comfortable, and content. Use soft fabrics that won’t irritate their skin. Opt for knitted fabrics (think sweater knit, not jersey knit) for a truly beautiful texture in photographs.

Avoid anything crocheted for the best portraits — even though sweet Aunt Sally was so excited to give you that crocheted turtle outfit, I’ve found that these are usually made with cheap yarn that cause the babies to sweat and immediately get a red heat rash on their skin. Then they’re crying and inconsolable the rest of the session. Nobody wants that! Plus, crocheted items don’t usually fall right on their little bodies the way clothing that is knitted can hug them beautifully. Thank your dear Aunt Sally, snap a cell phone pic, and share that with her. ;o)

Neutrals never go out of style.

Avoid anything too busy, bold, or neon. Neutrals look amazing with details like stripes, lace, eyelet lace, smocking, buttons, and knitted textures.

Still not sure what to wear? Check out our studio closet filled with beautiful options for your little one! If you’re thinking of wearing a studio outfit, let me know ahead of time what size your baby is and which outfits you have in mind and I will let you know if they’ll fit and get them ready for you ahead of time. Plus, be sure to ask me what’s new in the closet because we’re always adding new pieces for families to enjoy!

Enter the Giveaway! A Guest Blog Post with Inspired Start about Early Allergen Introduction in Babies

I love teaming up with local family-friendly companies to do commercial photography for their business.  These shoots are full-day sessions where we bring in products, baby models, and and experts in set design to create gorgeous images for their website & marketing materials.  

I recently had the opportunity to work with Inspired Start, a Boston-based baby food company that is revolutionizing early allergen introduction in babies by incorporating trace amounts of common allergens in baby food pouches to build up your baby's immune system response to these ingredients?  The end result?  Bye-bye food allergies!

They just launched live on Amazon, and to celebrate I invited Jessica Deckinger, the founder of Inspired Start, to be a guest blogger and tell us a little more about Inspired Start and where this product idea came from.  

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Enter the giveaway!!

The very best part?  We're hosting A GIVEAWAY with Inspired Start & Nicole Starr Photography!  Click the button below to head on over to our Facebook page to comment on the post and enter to win!

What inspires you as a parent?  Click the button to comment on our Facebook post, and you could win a 3-box set of Inspired Start baby food for early allergen introduction, plus a $250 gift certificate towards a photo session with Nicole Starr Photography at our Saratoga Springs or Attleboro studio. 

Gift certificate must be used between November 2017-March 2018.  To be entered to win, please leave your comment below and be sure to LIKE the Inspired Start and Nicole Starr Photography pages. 

Winner will be contacted on Friday, November 17.

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Tell us a little about you & your family.  

I am a typical working mom of three young children (which means I generally have at least 2 cups of coffee before I’m fully functional in the morning). In all truth, my girls are all phenomenal humans! They are ages 7, 4 and 3, and could not be more different!

My husband and I live in a small community right outside of Boston (actually the same community I grew up in!) While I occasionally like to dream about living a beautiful, magazine-worthy existence, our home usually looks more like a major world war of toys just took place...and the other side won. But one of the best things I’ve learned as a mom is that no matter how hard I try to be perfect at everything, I never will come close on most things. Forgiving yourself your flaws and imperfections as a mom is “the new black”. Anyone who has seen the inside of my closet lately knows my obsession with all-black clothing, so anything I refer to as “the new black” is really “the new everything”. ;) 

How did you get started working with babies & food allergies, and what brought on the idea of Inspired Start? 

I’ve been working for almost 2 decades in big companies. I’ve always loved what I do and I’ve been exceptionally fortunate to have worked with some pretty phenomenal people! When the last company I was with was acquired, I suddenly found myself thinking “maybe it’s time for me to try something a little crazy”. I wanted to take a risk and put myself outside of my comfort zone. I was ready to put all my experience to the test with no safety net, but my deal with myself was that I would only do it if I found something I was truly passionate about. When I met the team at Adeo and heard what the mission was, I knew I had found it. 

My oldest daughter developed a peanut and treenut allergy at age 1, and we spent years, lots of money, and many anxiety-ridden allergist appointments coping until she finally (and luckily) outgrew her allergy several years later. We are one of the few families I know who had a daughter that outgrew her food allergies. I never forgot how hard that experience was for me, financially and emotionally. I’ve always remained super-sensitized to moms who have kids with food allergies. When I started with Adeo, The LEAP study had recently been released. I knew that early allergen introduction was becoming more and more prevalent and wanted to be part of a team that helped bring groundbreaking scientific research to parents and families. I was lucky to be exposed to this research as part of my career, but I know that with three little kids I would not otherwise have found the time to read it on my own. 

Through friends with babies, I knew that pediatricians were starting to instruct parents to introduce allergens early and often, just like other solids foods. But as I’m hearing that, I remembered how hard I thought those first foods were with my daughters. If there is anything I can do to make that process easier for other moms, that’s something I can get behind. 

I'm fascinated by your system of packs and pouches!  Tell us about how Inspired Start's method for the early introduction of allergens works.  

Our whole goal with Inspired Start was to create something that would fit into what parents are already doing with new food introduction. It is a new enough concept for parents to introduce allergens early rather than delaying introduction, we didn’t want to add extra steps, strange formulas, or new routines to that mix. 

We talked to countless parents during the process of developing Inspired Start. Over and over again we heard that parents like to introduce new foods for a couple of days before moving on to the next. We also overwhelmingly heard that baby food pouches are the go-to when parents are on the move or want to save time preparing at home. Especially with foods like nuts and shellfish that are hard to make age-appropriate for babies, we didn’t want to add any additional time to parents’ existing craziness. In response to these findings, we decided a simple recipe combining an organic fruit puree and just a small amount of potentially allergenic protein in a baby food pouch would be the perfect way to introduce these allergens. We also decided that we wanted to give parents multiples of each pouch so they could introduce each new food for a couple of days before moving on to the next. Pack 1 and Pack 2 contain two pouches of four different recipes each. 

Inspired Start is a three-part system, but it is designed to be flexible. For parents that have already introduced many of these foods in some form but want to have an easy way to consistently keep them in baby’s diet, the Variety Pack contains one pouch of each of our delicious recipes. I actually use the Variety Pack at home with my oldest daughter (her favorite foods are pasta, bread, quinoa, rice, and more grains) to keep a great source of protein in her diet. 

When is the best time for babies to get started?

It's varies for every baby! Whenever baby is starting other solid foods (purees, infant cereals, etc.), he or she will also be able to eat the pureed recipe in each of our pouches. That being said, some families choose to introduce the bases (apple, pear, mango, and banana) before introducing Inspired Start just so that the baby has already experienced the flavor of each of our foods. We put 4+ months on our packaging as a suggestion in line with published research, but we want families to do what is right for them and to make decisions with the help of their pediatricians. 

What does this mean for parents, and hopefully, what does this mean for food allergies in the future?

Early allergen introduction is a new way of thinking about the first foods that our babies experience. The reality is that many of these foods are not naturally in baby-appropriate form and let’s face it, we’re parents, not superheroes. When things get crazy at home, we reach for the fast and easy foods. That means not always feeding baby a truly varied diet that regularly includes potentially allergenic foods. With Inspired Start, parents have a simple way to do that. 

Our sincere hope is that we are opening up a world of healthy and varied eating for a new generation of kids by starting early with early allergen introduction!

Where can parents find more info?  

If parents want to hear more from the amazing allergists, nutritionists, and moms who helped to develop our product, they can visit our experts page (www.inspired-start.com/experts). Our website as a whole, especially the blog, is a great resource for parents who want to understand how allergen introduction fits into general new food introduction. We also always encourage parents to reach out to us directly via phone or email. We’re a team of moms, dads, aunts, uncles, and baby food enthusiasts. We really care about providing support to the families that rely on Inspired Start. 

Using Rainey's Closet Dress Rentals for my Portrait Studio Wardrobe

Can I let you in on a little secret?  It's the way that every little girl can feel like a princess for her portrait session.  It's called Rainey's Closet.  

Every photographer (and mom!) wants to find the perfect outfit for their portrait sessions.  You want something unique, fun, and just a little bit whimsical.  Something a little bit fancier than your everyday clothing, because photo sessions are a time to have a little fun and experiment with something new!

But that can get a little expensive, especially if you're just going to wear it once, and even more so if your little girl will outgrow it in no time at all.

The solution?  Rent the perfect dress for your session!

Rainey's Closet is a boutique rental company, similar to Rent the Runway, but with couture dresses and adorable little outfits for babies, little girls, and even some items for little boys!  Their website is filled with the most popular brands that photograph so beautifully -- Tutu Du Monde, Dollcake, Nellystella, Well Dressed Wolf, Joyfolie...  The list goes on and on!

I adore this service because for about $35, you can rent the most perfect dress that will truly make your session that much more magical.  A dress that is perfect for twirling, with little hints of sparkle and lots of movement that looks amazing on camera.  

I have discovered so many gorgeous brands and gowns through this website, and it's definitely a favorite resource of mine that I recommend to all of the families I work with.  Planning a beach session this summer?  Rather than spending $30-40 on a dress at the store that you may or may not love, and one that may or may not photograph nicely, rent one from Rainey's Closet that will look STUNNING for your session and that will make your little girl feel like a princess.

I would love it if you'd use my unique referral code
when you rent from Rainey's Closet!  

It's 141372.

Many moms like to send me pictures of the outfits they are thinking of before the session, and then it's so easy to pick one of the dresses from Rainey's Closet to coordinate.  Their colors are soft with lots of neutral tones that will go well with every combination you could possibly dream up.  I have marked dozens of their dresses as favorites, and pinned even more on our wardrobe inspiration boards on Pinterest.  Stuck on outfits?  Start with Rainey's Closet and the rest will come together beautifully!  

For more wardrobe inspiration, check out these helpful links!

Pinterest: Spring Wardrobe Inspiration for Family Portrait Sessions

Pinterest: Beach Wardrobe Inspiration for Family Portrait Sessions

Blog: What to Wear for your Family Portrait Session

A Tiny Ballerina Session at Boston Ballet School

On a chilly winter morning, I was lucky enough to be invited to Stella's ballet studio to capture some moments of this tiny ballerina in action.  Stella takes beginner ballet classes at Boston Ballet School in Newton, and I always love seeing her mama's posts and videos on Instagram of her little dancer.  

I have always dreamt of doing a tiny ballerina's portrait session in a light-filled ballet studio, so when we started planning Stella's session together and I saw the studio with their gleaming floors, exposed brick walls, and huge windows with natural light streaming in, I was in photographer heaven!

One of the things that Stella's mama and I were most excited about with this session was knowing that this tiny dancer will be able to look back at these images in 15 years and see her innocence, curiosity, and budding dance skills from the very beginning.

Stella LOVED running around the studio and showing me her ballet moves -- did you know that she calls her feet a "pizza slice" when moving them into position?!?!  We did a few quick little outfit changes for this tiny ballerina, and my favorites were with her little ballet slippers, simple leotard, and classic wrap sweater & leg warmers.  

These next two might be my favorite images from the entire session!  Those little lashes, those tiny toes, and that cute way she has to reach up above her head to touch the barre.  

These are the moments you want to remember when looking back at her early days in ballet lessons.  

These are the memories that will forever come to mind when you watch your ballerina at her recitals 5, 10, 15 years from now and one day much later when she brings her little ones to ballet classes of their own.

Would you love to plan a Tiny Ballerina session for your little dancer?  Email me at hello@nicolestarrphotography.com and let's plan the perfect session for your ballerina today!  Now booking in Saratoga Springs & Boston.