Urban Mamas

In previous years, I would coerce my husband into making the hike out to some spot up in the mountains to snap a picture of our family.  As the family photographer and videographer, we've got plenty of pictures of the kids, solo, with each other, with each parent, with other families and friends.  However, in the mix of the hundreds of pictures we take over the year, we can never get it together to take a picture of our family.  And if we do, inevitably, somebody is caught not looking, with their eyes closed, or not smiling.  The first year, when my son was about 9 months old, we spent Thanksgiving in the Wallowa Mountains.  We trekked our way on snowshoes into some remote area of "Little Switzerland" and somehow as our digital camera teetered precariously on some rock, we managed to capture this fantastic photo.  This year, we decided to go the route to get some professional help from Dimples Photography.  Though the pictures turned out fantastic, we have probably missed our deadline to send out holiday cards by the end of the year! Oh well, but as I reminisce on our little adventure to Eastern Oregon, I am inspired to DIY a good family picture in the new year for the next holiday season.  Do you partake in the holiday card sending / giving tradition? Do you do-it-yourself, or do use the services of a professional photographer?  I'm also curious if anyone sends out electronic holiday cards, or is that too impersonal?

We served up an Easter full of very cute chicks and very pastel-colored Easter candy. I didn't even color eggs this year as my heart belongs to my future urbanChicken eggs! And, though one or two came highly recommended, we didn't make it to any Easter egg hunts. We ended up at a lovely-but-packed service at the beautiful St. Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church (across from Trader Joe's in the Hollywood District), where we were happy to see lots of children.

Now, as I look at photos of other children around the world finding their eggs, I'm wishing maybe we had. Did you do an organized Easter egg hunt this year? Would you recommend it for next year's Easter celebrants? Did you find an even better holiday tradition to follow? Please add your favorite pictures to our flickr group; tag them 'urbanEaster' and I'll include some in a mosaic later this week!

Have you noticed? I love taking photos, and sharing them with y'all. I love taking photos of you, and your adorable children, and (naturally) my adorable children. And I want to see your photos, too!

Long long ago, we started the urbanMamas flickr pool. And, though a few have been added by some of my compatriots, it's mostly populated by me! Can you help make our photo story richer? We'll be developing tags to go with many of our more popular thread (starting with 'urbanChicken') -- if you tag your photo with the appropriate buzzword and add it to the urbanMamas pool, I'll feature selected photos in bi-weekly mosaics so those outside can see how wonderful life is in urbanMamaTown!

We've had tons of discussion lately about photography for holiday cards or gifts, but we haven't talked yet about the Big Man in Red, Mr. S. Claus. Will you do photos with him? If so, where? Liz asks:

Hello - It's my son's first holiday season & I want to do the Santa photo - any suggestions on a "good Santa" to go to?

With the holidays just around the corner, there has been tons of urbanMama conversation on photographers.  Why not go and catch a movie while the kids' photos get snapped?  Thanks, Stephanie, for the tip!

Photographer Rachel Kubik will be at the Academy Theater on December 2nd and 3rd between 11AM and 9PM with a location studio setup to take your children's portraits.  Simply make a reservation for babysitting with the theater.  When you drop your child off sign up for pictures at the registration table,and pay the $15 fee. Then you can go and enjoy a movie while we have fun playing and taking great pictures!  She will put 10-20 shots of each child on a CD and mail them to you right away.  The digital files will be yours to do whatever you like with them. You can purchase additional copies of the CD with a custom designed cover for $10 apiece.  These make great inexpensive, but priceless Christmas gifts! Make your reservations at the theater early to guarantee a space!

Stephanie adds: I've seen some of Rachel's work in person - her portraits decorate the play space at the Academy Theater and they are wonderful. She has additional examples of her portraiture posted on her web site.

This post originally appeared 03.22.2006

A question from Molly:

Does anyone have any suggestions for photographing a two-year-old?  My mother will be in town for my daughter's second birthday, and she wants to get an "official" birthday photograph.  I'm not generally a huge fan of the posed studio shots, but if anyone has a recommendation for a studio, I might give it a try.  I prefer the idea of getting some great "natural" shot, but I'm not much of a photographer myself, and I know that hiring a professional photographer to capture your child frolicking about can cost an arm and a leg.  Any ideas or suggestions?

Did you know that one of our own is a superb photographer, specializing in family and child photos?  Last holiday season, Sarah offered her services for a Holiday Card Photo Shoot.  To see more examples of her work, see how she captures moments at our playdates or w[h]ine nights...  Heck, why not just check out all of cafemama's flickr photos!

We've also just received a email from Chris:

So...while I would love to go to Campbell Salgado for family photos, that's not in the budget right now. I would like to get some beautiful, unique portraits of my baby and preschooler, with a photographer who's not bound by convention or stuck in a corporate studio rut. Wise uMamas, whom do you recommend?

Lisa Warninger Photography is offering a $40 portrait session in November!  This is an excellent opportunity to have your children photographed. For those pregnant mama's, book your session in November and schedule your portraits at a later date.

Lisa only schedules two sessions a day, and will book fast, so call early!

Visit: http://www.lisawarninger.com

Ring: 971.678.4128 

Aaah, the family portrait.  Certainly something my husband and I barely think about and usually scramble last minute for a portrait worthy of sending out as holiday cards.  But if you're a bit more prepared, there are so many wonderful photographers in town...The Sidewalk Studio, Sarah Gilbert, Sherri Diteman, and Lisa Warninger to name a few.  Is it timely that Chari wrote in this request?  Have at it mamas, inquiring minds want to know!

I'm looking for recommendations from Portland mamas on great photographers for family portraits. I'd love to hear from Urban Mamas experiences with local photographers!

It was a sunshiney Sunday when the urbanMamas gathered our broods at the idyllic urbanPark Tanner Springs for a photo shoot with Chuck and Jill of The Sidewalk Studio.  What the morning would entail, none of us could say.  What do you think would happen when you try to photograph five mamas and six kidlets (minus the nurturing Ate who has become an older sister to all of our energetic boys)?  Chuck and Jill were up to the challenge.  They were determined to grab the essence of the urbanKids, all six of them in one “sitting”.  Well, er, in our case, in one “running”.

While the mamas were busy trying to corral the urbankiddos, our fair photographers never missed a beat.  They were there for every posed millisecond and every candid opportunity. Between the two of them, there's double the chance a moment will be captured.  The moment isn't the only thing that Chuck and Jill capture.  Somehow, they capture not only a specific subject at a specific time in a specific place, but they grab a personality, a character.  Instead of an expression, it seems more like a mood or an attitude. They put us in a setting where we could be ourselves, and it is who we are was what came through in the photos.  Not just what we looked like at that moment in time.

Lots of us know what it can be like to get the kids to sit still.  Yeah, right.  Kids are made to be spunk-cadettes.  Happy campers.  Crazy stompers.  Speedy runners.  So, Chuck and Jill enouraged the kids to Jump! Cheer! Race! Skip! Laugh!  And, they caught it all.  Through their lenses.

With holidays coming up, we have the perfect gifts for family.  Who wouldn't want a photo like this?  We can even do these cute little booklets, the modern brag books, filled with this fun, spunky images.  Thanks, Sidewalk Studio.  More than just awesome photos of our urbanKidlets, you gave us six exhausted kids ready for their naps.  Yay! from the urbanMamas!

Some of you know that I've been playing around with doing photography in my spare time. In fact, I just won an auction for a vintage camera lens with which I will take portraits that I promise will take all of your breath(s) away. I'm eager to take lots of photos of friends and their babies, for practice, and just for fun. Problem is: I'm never in the pictures.

I had a crazy idea that I'd like to offer up to PDX urban mamas of all kinds. Would anyone like to get families together for a photo shoot some morning soon? We could use the product for Christmas cards, and if we have more than one photographer (I know lots of you can compose a great shot!), maybe someone could take a picture of me, and my family. I'm thinking around 8:30 a.m. next Saturday, December 10 - the photos could be ready that afternoon and we'd have plenty of time for holiday card-making. Who's with me?

Meeting location: Pioneer Courthouse Square, or Pioneer Mall, or under the Hawthorne Bridge?