Amber will have a full pregnancy shoot later in Marsh with her daughter and her hubby, but today she and I escaped up the mountain to do a little snow play while there was some to play in. Thanks for hanging out with me today Amber, I had a great time!

I thought you would want to know about a very special promotion we will be participating in with other photographers from around the country.  On April 21, 2012 we will host “Celebration of Smiles Day”  in Ashland, a wonderful opportunity for you to update individual portraits of your family members and at the same time support the work of Operation Smile, which treats children around the world who suffer with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities.

Along with other participating members of Professional Photographers of America (PPA), we have pledged to donate 100% of each $24 donation made to PPA Charities, which has chosen Operation Smile as its charitable partner.

Evoking and capturing the smiles of children is our ultimate goal. That’s why we believe so strongly in the work of Operation Smile. Each year this incredible organization of more than 5,000 volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, and special­ized health care professionals, perform free reconstructive surgeries for children suffering with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities.

Every three minutes a child somewhere in the world is born with a facial deformity. One in ten will not survive to see their first birthday. Those who do survive often live in isolation and pain. More than 100,000 children are born with a facial deformity each year in Operation Smile’s 26 partner countries.

I hope you will join with us in helping to make this vital work possible.  As always . . . we look forward to creating some truly wonderful portraits of your children!

Warm wishes,

Crystal Garcia

Click here to download the poster.  Click here to register for the event!

One thing that I love about the stage that Autumn is in, is that she is so comfortable in her own body. Something I hope will not change, but likely will given, our culture. I love how she moves in order to get her body to do things for her. She doesn’t think about sucking in her tummy, unless her body requires her to do so for balance. She doesn’t worry that when she bends over she may show the world her undies.

I struggled last week when Autumn fell in love with a pair of plastic princess “heels” she wanted from Goodwill. She has been wearing the things all around the house and even to bed (I don’t let her wear them outside because I don’t want her to fall and because I want her to run). I personally hate heels and never understood the point of causing yourself discomfort for the sake of fashion, so I really didn’t understand why Autumn would wear something that limited her movement, are hard and surely must be uncomfortable. I may never know, but it seems the fad is dying down. At any rate, I hope she never chooses heels because she thinks she needs to to make her legs look better, fit in or to feel taller like girls in magazines. I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it and model a different attitude along the way while I am at it.

Today however was about photographing Autumn in some of her beautiful, natural movements. I didn’t even get half of them. In fact as soon as we got home I immediately noticed some tippy toe stands as she reached for things just out of reach and a pointed toe on one foot (for whatever reason). I imagined these photos taking place in this cool place I had seen in Talent, but when I took Autumn there this time it just didn’t seem like safe enough place to let her be free to move and explore so I opted out. I think they turned out to be a nice capture of her being comfortable in her own skin in a simple way though.

“And though she be but little, she is fierce.” -Shakespeare

And a little happy color to end the session. Of course we followed up with a cupcake at the Cupcake Daily here in Talent. The prefect little Mama/Daughter date!

If you would like to book a mini session before Feb 4th to get a few fun pictures to send cards or e-cards to friends and family or for your child’s school Valentine’s party just click the contact button! We can do this same set up in your home or mine, or one of man other love themed ideas that are simple, fun and relaxed.

For now, Happy (early) Valentine’s Day form Josiah and Autumn!

P.S. You might remember Julie from her maternity session where she was rocking the bed rest and looking amazing well into her pregnancy with the boys.

IRoxanne was totally awesome holding these two boys (even when they let out some gas on her lap, she stayed calm!). SHe is such a sweet and beautiful girl!

I I think this may be my favorite dad and newborn picture to date. Their expressions are priceless.

Newborn sessions are typically done in your home or mine in the first 14 days off life. To talk about getting natural professional coverage of your birth, pregnancy or a newborn session just click the contact button. Thanks!

And don’t forget to leave this new baby and his family some love by leaving a comment below!

He is a thumb sucker already!

This past weekend I had the honor of attending Brian’s birth…well sort of. I actually arrived just minutes after he made his appearance, WAY faster than anyone expected and making him my first baby to actually miss the birth of! I met with Brian’s mom earlier in the day on Saturday (Brian’s actual due date BTW) and we hung out and chatted for almost two hours! Later that evening Andrea (Brian’s mama) called to say she was in labor and having contractions regularly. Because she was talking to me fine on the phone and had only been in labor a couple hours I told her I would be there within the hour and to call me if anything changed. Well when I arrived 40 minutes later I walked into a very excited house of three big sisters who just found out they had gotten a brother!

Brian arrived so fast in fact, they couldn’t even get the birthing tub filled in time and the midwives’ car doors were open and some of their items were still outside! (If you drive up to a home and see this, you know you are late! ). Anyway, I was so happy to still be able to capture Brian’s first couple of hours of life with his three big sisters and his wonderful mama and daddy. The midwives (Laura Roe and Veege Ruediger, click their names to view their websites/practices for well woman and prenatal and birth care) at this birth were so great, thorough and just a pleasure to spend the evening with. They did everything at Andrea’s pace (exams and paperwork, ect), and did an excellent job of including all the siblings. Andrea is also a Bradley Method instructor and though new to this area, will be teaching classes soon. To contact her about classes you can view the teacher director here.

Note: I have hand picked only about half of Andrea’s birth photos for this video slideshow. Breastfeeding is shown throughout, however no other body parts are shown nude. If you are sensitive to seeing a baby breastfeeding you may not want to view this video slideshow (and in fact you may not want to be on my blog at all . All these images have been previewed and cleared to be shown publicly by the family.

Erin is also a prenatal yoga instructor (when she’s not on bed rest) at Trillium Waterbirth Center in Medford. So be sure to look for her classes whenever she goes back to teaching! Leave some well wishes and encouragement in the comments below. I am sure she would appreciate it.

I would like to add that this belly has NOT been photoshopped! Yay for good genes and coco-butter!

Well this family moved today to California and Ashland is going to really miss them. We will miss their kids Rosey and Mateo (who my daughter calls Potato), their singing, their acting and just having around. But we are super happy that they will be back some this summer for Green Shows! Here are a few of of my favorites from their head shot sessions. There were so many (I think we picked out over 100 images all together to retouch!). Enjoy!

Sarah Jane, thanks for being one of the first people to welcome me to the valley, never making fun of the way I saw “ya’ll” and introducing me to my favorite local restaurant! Best Wishes!

Anyways, I met Kate when photographing her newest little bundle! Sophie was 19 days old during this shoot, a little older than I prefer so not as “curly”, but still super cute!Sophie has a beautiful big sister, Claire. I love how sweet Claire was to Sophie!

I am including images from the first bag I modified to be a camera bag and the second which only holds a camera and one lens (this one I made for my stepmom for Christmas).

Materials:

• 1-1.5″ velcro (amount depends on how big of a bag you are making, but I used 1 packages)
• 1 bag (Choose the size based on what you carry. I chose a larger purse with a messenger strap from Target for $30)
• 1 yard of soft fabric (I used a cotton, pajamas type fabric)
• Thread
• Sewing machine
• 1- 2 pack of 1 inch thick poly foam ( I used one that came in a 15X17 inch rectangle and didn’t need to cut it!)

Step 1: My foam piece (15X17 inch) fit exactly into the my bag perfectly, so there was no cutting or measuring required. I simply laid my foam piece down on my fabric (folded in half) and cut my fabric to fit my foam, leaving about a 1.5 in border on every side.

Step 2: Sew the fabric around the foam like a pillow case. (In other words, turn the fabric inside our and sew 3 f the sides together. Then turn right side out and stuff the foam inside and sew the opening closed tight around the foam.)

Step 3: Put the covered pad inside your bag and decide how wide of a bade your bag has/needs. For the size and shape of mine, my pad divided almost equally into thirds to form a bottom or base. I marked these out using pins.

Step 4: Next I sewed a straight line down each of the thirds to make my pad fold nicely to form a base. Because of the thickness of the pad I left my sewing machine foot up and had my brother help pull the padding and fabric through. I also used a heavy duty needle in my machine.

Step 5: Cut the soft side of the velcro into two strips that are equal to the length of your pad. Pin them in place and sew them down using two passes to keep it from curling. Use the method above (and a lot of patience) when working with the thickness. Also give your self grace when you curse at the sewing machine or me for making you think this was a good idea. I promise, the hard part is over after this step!

Step 6: Insert the pad in your bag! Now figure out how many dividers you want. For my bag I made 5. One for each end of my bag to pad the sides (you could actually sew these to your pad, but since I don’t love to sew, I used them as removable velro inserts like the rest), and 3 others  to divide up the bag into areas for my lenses, flash and camera. In order to choose how large to make your inserts, measure the width of you bag with the insert and a piece of equipment in it. I drew out the dimensions on paper and inserted them into the bag to check to see if they were wide and tall enough.

Step 7: Now using your paper,  measure off the foam and cut the rectangles out. Now measure the fabric by laying out the foam and leaving an inch on two sides, and leave 2ish inches on the remaining side so that you will have plenty of room for the flaps and the velcro strips.

Step 8: Sew your foam into your fabric leaving a one inch flaps on the two tall sides. Sew along the foam on these sides to keep the foam in place. Now sew on the rough sides of the velcro to the flaps (one facing one way and one the other, check cheap department store bags if that doesn’t make sense but when you put the insert in your bag the flaps will make it a Z shape. Does that make sense?).

Step 9: Repeat for as many inserts as you want and you are done! This took me about 4-5 hours. It is hard to tell because of the shopping and needle breaking that occurred, which made the project stretch over two days. My sewing level is novice and I had no help so you can definitely do this for yourself! The second bag (the smaller teal on shown), I sewed using the same technique only I sewed the ends  (sides) of the padding together after I had the pad and fabric sew together. I didn’t make inserts for it since it only hold a camera and lens.

Happy sewing!

Thanks guys for giving me my “baby fix” and letting me hang out with you guys this morning!

I can fit it one more family next week in the Rogue Valley (Oregon) for family pictures in time to get Christmas cards in. Just shoot me an email and let’s set up a session! Crystal@CrystalGartcia.com. I am on the lookout for a person to trade a sewing project for their family session. If you might be that person, let me know! (I love to barter!)

This year with the kids being 3 and 4, they have been really excited about getting a Christmas tree and someone told me you could cut your own at in certain places in the National Forest here in Ashland. SO we went to the ranger station (behind Super 8 on the south side of Ashland) and bought a permit and got a map to know where we could cut from. You can find info here if you are looking to cut your own Christmas tree in the Rogue Valley. The best part was that the permit costs only FIVE BUCKS!! And you can cut a tree up to 12 feet tall, and up to 5 per family. Talk about a deal! Anyways, we drove up Dead Indian Road about 26 miles, stopped on the side of the road and hiked around in the snow until we found the perfect tree. The kids had so much fun, and we even brought hot coco that we picked up form a gas station and listened to Christmas music on the drive up. I highly recommend anyone in the area to do this, I just can’t explain what a joy it was for all of us.

I also think this would make a wonderful family photo session for Christmas, New Year’s or just because!

Here is a little video my hubby, Brian, made on his iPhone of the trip.