|
Award Winning Family Photographer | From Maternity & Babies to Seniors & Underwater Space Coast - Brevard County FL In-Home Lifestyle New Baby Session | Central Florida Baby PhotographerIt was an incredible honor to photograph this adorable family after they welcomed their new little man to the world. And yes, I may be a little biased since he's my nephew! Just a week after I booked my trip to visit after he would be here, he decided to come 6 weeks early and spent a week in the NICU. So instead of being around 4 weeks old when I arrived, he was 10 weeks old! I knew I wouldn't be photographing him as the typical squishy newborn at 7-14 days old since I couldn't plan my trip at the last minute, but one of my favorite things about a relaxed, lifestyle newborn session is that we can get beautiful photos with baby at any age. What I hadn't expected with him coming early is that he would barely fit into my newborn wrap material, but we made it work! One of the things I love with photographing an older baby is being able to capture baby connecting with the parents more than you can with a brand new baby. This sweet boy has not one, but two amazing mommas. You can see just how much he is loved! In addition to capturing him with his mommas, I love getting those tiny details like his eyelashes, hands, and toes; we quickly forget how little they were but the photographs can bring us back to those times. It's too bad we can't capture that new baby smell! We also incorporated some special items from his grandpa who passed away a little over 7 years ago. He's watching over you Baby J! I probably have a few too many favorites in this post but it was too hard to choose!
Fun Fact: I took the photo behind my sister in the next two photos!
<3 Kim Owner/Artist-Photographer Kimberly Tank Art & Photography It's never too late to photograph the joy of welcoming a new baby into your family. Contact me here for more information on an in-home lifestyle newborn/baby session!
Baby's First Year Milestones - In-Home Newborn Session with Extended Family | St Marys GAI LOVE when grandparents join in photo sessions. How many of us wish we had more photos of us with our grandparents? I know I do. By the time I graduated high school, all of my grandparents had passed; one of my grandmas passed when I was just shy of 2. I have very few photos of them with me but I cherish the ones I have. I am always trying to make sure I get photos of my son with his grandparents when we can, especially with none of them living close by. One day (hopefully not any time soon), they'll be gone and their memories will be kept alive by the photographs we have of them. This photo session not only included Grandma and Grandpa, it included cousins too! But this isn't your typical extended family session, it's actually a newborn session to welcome Baby C into the world. But when you have everyone in town together, why not take advantage of it while you can and capture this time together. By now, I have a pretty good idea how older siblings might be around a new baby, but I wasn't sure how different it might be since these older kiddos were cousins. They were super sweet with their new baby cousin, and as expected, when you have a 2 year old involved, they'll pretty much do their own thing. And since I love to capture everyone's true personality and not just cheesy smiles at the camera, I don't mind this at all! We captured the grandparents with all three granddaughters, cousins together, and a couple outside with the big girls's family and grandparents in addition to those that I normally capture for a newborn session. I'm looking forward to capturing Baby C throughout her first year! She is surrounded by so much love and I'm honored to be able to capture that for her family.
I also installed two beautiful custom framed museum art prints at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I love to provide the full service from photo capture to having the framed print on the wall. I want to make this process as easy as I can for my families and help beautifully preserve their memories. <3 Kim Owner/Artist-Photographer Kimberly Tank Art & Photography I only take on a limited number of Baby Plan Memberships for each calendar year to ensure the highest quality of service to all of my clients and priority booking for plan members. If you're interested in becoming a plan member, I'd love to chat with you! Contact me here.
Baby's First Year Milestones - Sitting Session Milk BathI love when clients come up with fun ways to celebrate their baby's (or child's) milestones. For the middle year/sitting milestone for this adorable baby plan member, Mom wanted to do an outdoor milk bath. What a great idea! I gathered the supplies, including some beautiful flowers from Lavender and Grace Studio to float in the milk bath and we chose our outdoor location. We did a few outside the tub first, capturing those adorable baby rolls and attempts to crawl, as well as kisses from Mom. Sometimes babies this age are teething and are much happier being held, so I always encourage moms to be ready to be in the photos too.
Then it was time to load up the tub! I brought warm water so it wouldn't be cold and upset Baby E and added evaporated milk and the flowers...
Well, she still wasn't happy about it! She normally loves baths, but sometimes babies just have an off day and that's ok, so we made the best of it and didn't make her stay in there too long.
Back in another adorable outfit, she was much happier.
<3 Kim Owner/Artist-Photographer Kimberly Tank Art & Photography I only take on a limited number of Baby Plan Memberships for each calendar year to ensure the highest quality of service to all of my clients and priority booking for plan members. If you're interested in becoming a plan member, I'd love to chat with you! Contact me here.
Wildflower Field Family Photos | Jacksonville FL Family Photographer
I've been wanting to travel to the flower field, near Jacksonville, for years. And this year, I finally went! I'm so glad I did. It was so beautiful and magical, especially as the sun was setting. I brought my own family with to grab some fun shots and then photographed one of my favorite families there as well. And if you know them, you know the wildflowers are a perfect backdrop for them! We captured a quick portrait and then moved to the fun stuff: running, giving big squishy hugs, and blowing the dandelion seeds! Real life isn't perfect and the moments in our children's childhoods and our connections with them are what we always want to remember and cherish, so that's what I love to capture. Be sure to scroll all the way down to check out the ones I took of my family too!
Sadly, I no longer live near this flower field and have not found anything like it here on Florida's Space Coast. I'm glad I at least go to go there this once! <3 Kim Owner/Photographer-Artist Kimberly Tank Art & Photography Looking to capture your family as they are right now? Do you want to capture the connections you have with your loved ones? Contact me today for more information on scheduling a family session!
Underwater Photography | Family, Child & Maternity Photographer | Central FLLast month, I attended the first Underwater Kids Workshop Retreat, and it was AWESOME. Back in 2017, I bought my first underwater housing to try underwater photography and see if it was even something I would enjoy doing. I loved seeing other's work, but would I want to do it myself? I had a couple of friends offer for me to photograph their kiddos for practice. I discovered that underwater photography is like a whole new world with challenges galore... and I LOVED it. I played in the waves at the beach and under the water in pools. I even won first place in the NAPCP (National Association of Professional Child Photographers) Inspired Gallery Print Competition with one of the images I shot at the beach, splashing in the waves with my son. So last year, I took 2 classes at Click Away with the wonderful Elizabeth Blank on underwater photography and editing, which was super helpful and confirmed with me that this was definitely something I wanted to do. I invested in a better underwater housing from SPL Water Housings and started booking underwater and in the waves sessions. There's always more to learn so I was super excited when Underwater Kids announced that they were having a workshop retreat AND that it was being held only 2 hours from me and that we'd be going to the springs for a day. I'm so glad I jumped at the opportunity and signed up. The women behind Underwater Kids, Jennifer Kapala, Christi Allen-Curtis, and Amy Vecchio, are all talented, lovely women and share so much of their knowledge with us. We had a full day of pool sessions with a variety of models (the real people kind not the professional kind). I was able to see how the light differed from morning to afternoon as well as experiment with a black backdrop underwater and lights at night in a black bottom pool. I learned how to better direct clients while in the pool (it's harder than you think to keep your face natural underwater for photos!). Then we went to Ginnie Springs and spent the day there photographing more models. It was even more magical than I expected. It also brought new challenges, the biggest one being sediment kicked up from the bottom that would make the bottom murky. We had so much fun and then on top of all of the shooting, we talked marketing and editing too. I'm definitely planning to head back to explore the springs more this summer with my husband and son. And who knows, maybe offer a day of sessions there?! I learned a ton and came home and told my husband that now I want a pool! I've said for years how I don't want one because I don't want to have to clean it all the time, even though we have a great yard for it, but if I can photograph in it for half the year it'll be worth it! (If you're local and have put in a pool recently and have recommendations, I'd love to hear who to keep in mind! Earliest we'd get one would probably be 2021... here's hoping!) And now for the part you really came here for... some of my favorite images that I took during the workshop!
My word of the year this year is play and this workshop really helped me play more with things I wouldn't normally have tried on my own with my photography. I'm excited to play more underwater with clients and create fun and unique photos for them! (You can also check out the beautiful work of my fellow attendees: Willy Wilson of Life Unstill Photography, Mary Okner of Mary Bea Photography, Renee Stengel of Renee Stengel Photography, and Samantha Baltz of Samantha Ann Photography) <3 Kim Owner/Photographer-Artist Kimberly Tank Art & Photography Looking for a fun and unique way to capture your family, kids, or pregnancy? Do you want to beat the heat of summer and have your session where the heat won't bother you? Contact me today for more information on scheduling an underwater session!
Companion: A Boy and His Dog | Award Winning Photographer | St Marys GA - Amelia Island FLThe second half of my 100 day project last year took longer to finish than I had planned. Typically when I set out to do a 100 day project, the goal is to do it every day for 100 consecutive days. That didn't happen with this one, though. I had gotten to a point where I didn't want to take what felt like the same picture over and over again (my son playing while his dog laid nearby). I tried getting this situation in a variety of ways obviously but I also have a bigger vision for my project that I didn't want to leave out of the process. Then Jack (the dog) started having heat issues which turned out to be his kidneys and we juggled that and managing his health so daily photos weren't happening then either. Add in that they both were sort of over my project at one point and were not super cooperative with some of the ideas I had that I wanted to capture. I'm glad it worked out the way it did because it allowed me to capture more variety as the year went on and the seasons changed. Plus, I was able to pull off a pretty great finale for the final image which we made right at Halloween (be sure to scroll all the way down for that one, especially if you're a Harry Potter fan!). If you missed the first half of my project and what inspired me to start it, go check out this blog post.
These two love to dig. We gave them a bare spot in the yard where they were allowed to dig and watching them dig together is often funny. Here it's as if Jack is thinking, "Hey, can I help with that?"
We ended up at the vet a lot last year between regular checkups, getting neutered, and then when Jack's health declined and we discovered his kidneys do not work properly. He's on a prescription kibble that we mix with a homemade diet and thankfully he's gotten better, though whatever the underlying kidney issue is, it's still there. Being that he was only about 18 months when this happened and no reason could be found, it's likely something he was born with.
These two and their nighttime shenanigans... ok, it's not just at night but they can be super silly.
If Connor is outside playing without Jack, Jack will often lose his mind, barking and whining to get outside with him. I wanted to capture this somehow and since it was bright outside, I chose a silhouette of Jack while seeing Connor through the window.
And then there are the times when they are both puppies (and need to be contained, haha).
Rain won't usually keep these two inside, but sometimes they opt to hang out under an umbrella.
Can you spot where Connor is in this photo?
More rainy day play, but this time I stayed inside and capture the view through the blinds/window.
We love the wildflowers that grow along the roadways and Connor loves to pick them. Jack has no opinion on this but does love his walks!
Where's the ball? There it is!
Puppies...
They're like littermates sometimes...
Occasionally, I'll have an idea of something I want to try to capture, though typically I can only get one to cooperate at a time.
And then we reached the point where they were both pretty much over my project, haha!
We had company in town so these two had a campout/sleepover in my office.
Always by his side... even in the most mundane of things.
What better way to celebrate summer than with an ice-cream cone for you and your dog. (We make our ice-cream out of frozen bananas and only Connor has chocolate).
This was one of those visions I had that I wanted to capture, which gave me some funny outtakes. I've seen this done with siblings but Connor is an only child so I wanted to capture him with Jack instead. It isn't perfect but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
We took Jack to the beach when he was a young pup and he was terrified of the ocean. We tried taking him back to see if being bigger helped his fear any... he loved running on the beach but still wanted nothing to do with the water.
Double Exposure... this one was tricky as getting them somehow at the same height wasn't working and I needed the sky behind them both so I had to use different angles.
And for the finale.... over the summer we started reading the illustrated Harry Potter books 1 & 2 and Connor became obsessed. After reading the second in the fall, he decided he wanted to be a Ravenclaw Hogwarts student for Halloween. Jack is so much his protector and I thought it would be perfect to turn him into a patronus for Connor. I normally don't do extensive photoshop work, simply because my focus is on capturing life and people as it is, so this was fun for me to really play around and create an image like this. (If you're interested in how I created this, let me know and I'll do a separate post explaining it!) Presenting Connor and his patronus, Jack...
<3 Kim Does your child (any age up to 18) have a special bond with their pet (any type of pet)? Want to participate in my kids and pets project and live within an hour of St Marys, GA? I need models for my kids & pets project. Send me an email and I'll send you more info on participating in this project. Participants will receive images in exchange for signing a commercial model release.
Family Session on the Beach at Sunset | Jacksonville Beach - Amelia Island Photographer
If you know me, you know that I LOVE the beach. Not only do I love to go to the beach with my family, it is my favorite place for photo sessions as well. It's not just the beauty of the beach (and the sunsets!), which of course are a big plus, but there's something more about the beach that just makes it better. The calming nature of the ocean helps everyone relax more and be themselves and the beach naturally invites everyone to just play! And when everyone is relaxed and playful, we get the best photos that capture who they are and everyone having fun together. This session was one of those sessions where everyone really had fun (yes, even Dad!) and I was able to capture beautiful and fun photos of this sweet family. The littlest had just turned one so we not only updated family photos, we also focused a bit on Miss A to celebrate her turning one. The sunset was perfect and complemented the colors mom choose for their outfits (which were so well put together as always!). Check out the video fusion I put together before scrolling through some of my favorite photos from the session!
Thank you R Family for continuing to trust me with your family photos over the years. I love watching your family grow and capturing these special moments for you! <3 Kim Owner/Photographer-Artist Kimberly Tank Art & Photography Looking to capture your family as they are right now? Do you want to capture the connections you have with your loved ones? Contact me today for more information on scheduling a family session! |
Kimberly Tank is an award-winning professional photographer in Rockledge, FL, servicing Brevard County on the Space Coast in Central Florida (including Melbourne, Cocoa Beach, Satellite Beach, Merritt Island, Viera and surrounding areas). Using natural light and custom on location sessions, Kimberly Tank specializes in photographing families from babies to seniors and commercial clients, both on land and underwater; providing an exceptional customer experience and helping save you time and preserve this chapter in your life's story. Kimberly Tank is a proud member and ambassador of National Association of Professional Child Photographers. Signup for my monthly newsletter and receive a FREE PDF on taking better photos of your kids! Click HERE Contact Me for more info and/or to book a session
|
Kimberly Tank is an award winning professional lifestyle photographer in Rockledge, FL, servicing Brevard County in Central Florida (including Melbourne, Cocoa Beach, Merritt Island, Viera and surrounding areas). Using natural light and custom on location sessions, Kimberly Tank specializes in photographing families from babies to seniors and underwater photography; providing an exceptional customer experience and helping you capture your story and turn your memories into works of art.