Chelsea [Family]

One of my favorite things about family sessions, is that every single one of them is different. Even if I do similar poses and prompts, no two family sessions are ever the same. This was no exception. The more kiddos, the better and toddlers will forever be my jam. Bring me all your chaos!

I also always try and get a couple images of just mom and dad because without you, there would not be any kiddos.

xoxo

Nina

Sterling Family [Simple Studio]

Is there anything better than just keeping it simple and allowing your family to just shine? No. The answer is no. Little Miss CeCe + her parents came to see me during a simple mini session and honestly, I just love the simplicity of the entire session. CeCe’s personality shines, you can see and focus on her and her smile and you can feel the love her parents have for her! Sometimes simple is better.

I mean, does it honestly get cuter than that?

xoxo,

Nina

Hey! It's Me! -Nina

Hi! Im Nina! The owner and photographer here at Blue Stone Photography! I am so happy that you’re here! If you missed my about me page or you havent came across my social media pages WELCOME!

I have been in business for about 8 years now and have made the switch from posed studio sessions to more slow living and capturing your moments. I have been photographing my own family like this for years but I also went from being a sales photographer (products) to an all inclusive photographer (digital images are included in session fees). This switch was really hard to make but I also wanted to be authentic to myself and the way we live our lives.

We live a slower lifestyle - both my husband and I work for ourselves and we have 3 tiny humans that we homeschool. We spend most of our days at home or at the gym (socializing) and 3ish nights a week at our church. With having a slower lifestyle and a heart to slowly homestead, it just made sense to switch over my business to match me, because lets be honest here, I am my brand.

We want chickens but it hasnt happened yet but we do have a decent size garden in the backyard. Again, we homeschool and we make our bread as well as a lot of other basic necessities like granola bars, bagels and dinner rolls.

Making a switch to a slow living photography style just made sense so I can show up on social media and other platforms as myself without feeling like I couldnt share our sourdough journey, homeschooling life and everything else.

So this year, I really wanted to make sure I was real and authentic and raw when I booked our family session and a backyard session with smores the way to go. I am so happy with how these turned out and while we dont dress in nice clothes in the backyard, this is us. This is our real. This is how we spend a lot of summer nights - together, in the backyard with a fire and smores.

Want to capture your REAL and authentic family as you are? LETS GO! I am so ready! These are the moments your kids will remember and these are the moments you should remember too.

xox,

Nina

Matilda [Family]

This family has been with me since their youngest was a newborn. It has honestly been so much fun watching their boys grow over the past 4 years. One of my favorite things is you allowing me the chance to continue to capture memories and moments for you and welcoming me into your lives to showcase your love and connections with each other. For this one, we did an outfit change, which I don’t do very often BUT we wanted to head to the beach at the end of their session and the outfit change was definitely a game changer in the final outcome of their gallery.

This session also gives such a good idea of what it looks like in all sun conditions. In the garden it was overcast. At the beach, it was raining at first and then the sun came out a little bit and then fully came out at the end. I adjusted my editing to accommodate a lot, but theres just something about that natural glow of sunset, especially at the beach.

Want to book a family session? Head over to the contact form and lets chat!

xoxox,

Nina

What To Wear For A Family Session.

You finally decided to book your family session! Yay! We’re all so excited and then the stress of trying to figure out what to wear sets in and you start to panic. What do I wear? What do I put on my kids? What does my husband wear? Are we suppose to match? What colors do we use? What patterns are okay? RELAX! I am here to help! And I also know the stress of getting two toddlers plus a husband ready for pictures.

First things first, find one outfit you really want in your pictures and start there. I personally start with the baby or my toddler and find an outfit I LOVE, and coordinate the rest after. Whether it’s a solid dress that’s flowy to fit your little one’s style or it’s the perfect floral skirt you scored on clearance, start with one piece you know you want and filter everyone else from there.

Please do not show up with everyone wearing jeans and white t-shirts or khaki pants and navy tops, you will end up clashing. Also, avoid too many plaids and/or patterns. My moto is, coordinate but don’t match. OKAY NINA! BUT HOW!? It’s actually quite simple. Let me use my family session wardrobe as an example. I bought a black short romper with a train for my toddler and I KNEW I wanted to use it for our pictures. It had a floral pattern of yellows and greens. So, I found solid yellow romper for the baby to match, a solid green flowy dress for me and threw my husband in dark jeans and a solid beige sweater. We all had coordinating colors with one outfit as the “center piece”.

In addition, I would not put your toddler or baby in a really expensive dress or be too formal. If that’s you, and the look you’re going for, then awesome! but I also want you to be comfortable. Now, that also doesn’t mean to dress down. You want to be comfortable/casual but also cute. Mom, even if you don’t wear dresses or skirts often, I highly recommend a flowy dress or skirt. They’re cute and flow nicely while playing with the kiddos and you can still move around better than you can in jeans. Again, if jeans or leggings are your thing, awesome, but keep in mind what your end goal is for the outcome of your session. What you wear can make or break the style and overall look of your session.

Finally, if you have any questions or concerns, you can always send me your picks and I can help you coordinate. I love styling your sessions if I can, and I have some cute childrens outfits in my client closet we can use too if needed. DO NOT be afraid to send me a message or call me in a panic about your outfits because I WANT TO HELP! If I can make it happen and we need to go on a shopping date, I’m here for you. Your session is just as important to me, as it is for you!

Here’s a short list of some shops/stores I recommend to get your outfits from:

Shein, Lulus, Amazon, Old Nay, ZARA, H&M, Forever 21, Bailey’s Blossom

XOXO

Nina - Your Metro Detroit Family & Newborn Photographer

Family Sessions: What To Expect

You are thinking about or have already booked a family session but what should you actually expect and meet up for the first time? First and foremost, I want you to be yourself. I want you use my dress guidelines but also make sure that you are comfortable and true to yourself. I also want you to know, that if you have young kids, I probably will unintentionally ignore you, I don’t mean to but as a mom to three toddlers I tend to engage with your kiddos during our walk to the location to get them to warm up to me. I will greet you and ask you how you are doing and normal small talk, but a majority of my energy will be spent trying to make a connection with your kiddos.

During your session I will get your “Christmas Card” pose image first while your children are at their best listening ability and then we play. I always make sure to try as best I can to get you that super traditional posed, everyone looking at me and hopefully smiling image first, because I know that’s what grandma is going to want. As parents, we like the real and raw images of our family and that is what I love to capture most, your true family connection in love, snuggles and play.

“Christmas Card” Picture … everyone looking at the camera.

What does real connection look like? Well, this is one of the reasons why I like to spend so much time getting your kiddos to engage with me, because I want them to let go and little and have fun with you. If you have toddler - elementary age kids, I always like to play with a blanket, whether its running under it or swinging them in it like a hammock and I also love to play ring-around-the-rosie. These two things are almost always a staple in my sessions. I also almost always throw everyone on a blanket and have you sit really close to each other and have different family members engage with each other. This can be, dad giving one kid a hug, or mom kissing her baby on the forehead, or even just family tickles for everyone.

Snuggles!

I also always try to get images of just dad and just mom with the kiddos and I have 2 reasons for this; First is, as a mom, I do not have very many images of me and my girls as much as I have some of my husband and them or them by themselves. As a mom and a photographer, I always want to capture the moments and I never seem to get into the pictures, so I always do this for my families. Second, grandparents. I know I know, grandparents want the whole family image or just their grands BUT sometimes they want their individual child with their children and not the spouse. I also strive to get individual images of each kiddo and just the kiddos together. Your kids grow so fast, seriously time does not stop moving when you have babies and capturing each of them individual is so important to me, to watch not only my own, but also your kids grow every year.

Finally, we let your kids go explore (within reason) and I always grab some images of just mom and dad. I think this is the most important part of your session and even if you don’t want me to do it, I will still do it because I have had more clients than not, tell me they are so happy I “forced” them to take those images because they didn’t realize how long it has been since they have taken pictures with their spouse/significant other. So this is always a must at the end of your session when your kiddos are over me and my shenanigans.

Overall, we have a lot of fun, laugh a lot, you snuggle and engage with each other and sometimes even forget that I am there, which means I did my job correctly. I will always guide you in prompts and some posing and some easy tasks to help with engagement and connection when needed.

So if you like to laugh and have fun and want to capture those cute connections between you and your significant other as well as your kiddos, I’m your girl.

I cannot wait to talk to you about what you are looking for in your session and meeting you soon!

Your Metro Detroit Newborn and Family Photographer

xoxo

Nina.

Smash & Splash: How To Prepare Your Child

Smash & splashes can be a lot of fun for both baby and mom/dad, but sometimes they can be a disaster. We all want that kid that loves their cake and smiles and laughs the whole time, but sometimes, that doesn’t always happen. There are a couple tricks to help get your child prepared that I am going to share with you but I also want to share with you some of my tricks in case we have a meltdown!

First and foremost, do not let the cake smash session be the first time your child tastes frosting or feels the texture of cake. Sometimes the sugar and sweetness from the frosting will put them off right away, and the texture of the frosting can be sticky and also start a meltdown. About 2 weeks prior to your session, make some cupcakes and let baby have some sensory time with it. They will be able to feel the different textures of both the frosting and cake as well as taste it, because we all know babies put everything in their mouths. If they are totally cool with it, awesome, don’t worry about the cake being an issue, if they do have a meltdown or don’t seem to like it, try again the next day or a couple days later, so they know that it’s okay and also can adjust to the feeling and taste.

Secondly, let me know ahead of time if baby has stranger danger and takes a while to warm up to new people. I always try to spend a few minutes, or more, when you arrive to get baby used to me. 8-12 months is prime age for your child to start developing a sense of anxiety around new people, especially if they do not attend a daycare or aren’t around many other people in general. Just let me know ahead of time so I can spend extra time getting your babe to warm up to me.

Third, send me their favorite song(s) or show so I can try and have something ready to go in case of a meltdown. Sometimes just singing “Baby Shark” or “ABCs” will do the trick and sometimes they need to see something on a screen or a favorite toy over my camera.

Forth, bring their favorite snack or puffs to hide in the back of the cake. Sometimes even with all prep work, they will not touch the cake and that’s totally okay. Hiding puffs or Cheerios in the back of the cake will allow me to capture your baby “grabbing” their cake, when really they’re just reaching for their snacks. I always have Cheerios readily available when needed but if your child prefers something else, bring it. No harm in trying all the tricks.

Also, start giving your child snacks while they are seated on the floor. Why is this important? When a baby is constantly put into a chair for snack or meal times, sitting on the floor in the studio with a cake in front of them can be another whole obstacle to tackle. I am not saying to give your child ALL the snacks on the floor because mess, BUT a few snacks here and there leading up to the cake smash is a good idea to make sure the smash cake session is not the first time they are eating while sitting on the floor.

Lastly, don’t stress, I got you mama. I handle everything from the cake to the outfit and set up. You express your theme, I will do the rest. I am more minimalistic when it comes to cake smashes because I want your baby as the front and center of the session, not the dramatic set up. Sure those set ups are cute, but I’m always drawn to how extravagant they are, and not the baby. I want you to see your sweet little babe.

Overall, cake smashes can be an amazing additional to your child’s first year milestone sessions but sometimes we have to do some work to get the amazing out of it, and that’s okay. And please remember, not crying is a WIN! Not all babies come in and are happy and excited and smile the entire time. But if your child looks at me, even with a straight face, and does not cry, MAMA that is a huge win for this age.

xoxoxox

Nina - Your Metro Detroit Newborn & Family Photographer

Update Your Images!

Alright, so this has been a topic that’s been super heavy on my heart the past couple months and I am going to get a little morbid but I feel this needs to be addressed. UPDATE YOUR IMAGES and I am going to tell you why.

You're getting older and so are your kids. They've moved out of the house and have children of their own. You have not updated your family pictures since your oldest was in middle school or younger and until now, you think that’s been okay. Your kids get school pictures every year and pictures with every sport they’re in, every season. Follow all that up with senior pictures, and its like you’re constantly spending money on pictures for your kids, but lets be honest, do you have any of those hung in your home? Do you have a recent family picture that resembles who you are now? Would your grandchildren recognize YOU in the pictures you have hung?

Listen, I am not saying that old pictures aren’t okay but those images are nice to sit down with your kids and grandkiddos to reminisce with. Truth bomb though, we don’t remember you that way. We love seeing your eyes light up when you tell a story about an image you see. We love hearing you tell stories about when you were younger and how different the times are. We love hearing about your wedding day and seeing the dress you wore. We love looking at those old pictures of you and your family especially when you tell us that we look like your great aunt, when we never met her. But those aren’t the images we want when you aren’t around anymore to describe them or point out those people. We want images of you of how you are now. We know who you are right now. We know what you look like right now. When we go through a box of pictures for those boards we are going to put up at your funeral or wake, we want images of how we remember you. How your grandkids see you and remember you. So update your images.

So, book an extended family session with all your kids and your grandkids. Book a session with just your partner. Book a session with just your kids or grandkids. Just book a session and update your images. Its not for you, its for us. We need you to have images for us so we can reminisce with them, when you’re not around anymore. We want to show our kids pictures of you, how they and we remember you. We want to sit down with our kids and grandkids one day and not have to guess who is who in a picture, we want to tell a story. We want to be able to show our grandkids you. If my grandchild looks like my mom, and (s)he never met her, I want current, updated images of my parents now, to show them. We don’t care if you think you don’t look the way you want, we don’t care if you think you’re “fat” or “not pretty anymore” or whatever excuse you have. Its not for you at this point, its for your kids. Do it for us. Do it for your grandkids.

UPDATE YOUR IMAGES!

With all the love,

xoxo

Nina - Your Metro Detroit Newborn & Family Photographer