I had the amazing opportunity to take some photography classes with Stacy from Stacy Mae Photography and Click and Capture Your Everyday. I first heard of Stacy shortly after having my daughter and followed her on social media since than. I've never used her for family photos and to this day still have not had family photos taken....EVER! I know that is terrible coming from someone who loves taking photos. It should just be a given right? But that will change very soon because I am booking a session with her! I love her clean and casual style. Her photos always look like there is so much fun happening during the session and I want that for our own family photos. When I did meet Stacy in person I understood why her photos give off such a fun and genuine vibe. She is very sweet and laid back and is amazing with children (more about that later). When I saw that she was offering online classes I asked my husband for them as my Christmas gift. During the 6 week course I learned a lot about my camera and gained more confidence in using it outside of the automatic mode. When the online course ended I bravely reached out to Stacy and asked if she offered any one on one mentoring classes. I say bravely because anyone who knows me knows I can be very shy and have a hard time speaking up to people I don't know well. But being brazen paid off and she agreed, so on to my mentoring class I went!

Our one on one class went well. We met at a park and used Jade as our model. Unfortunately Jade was a bit under the weather and I had to wake her from a nap in the car ride over so she wasn't in the best of spirits but the class itself was great and as I said before Stacy is great with kids and she kept Jade engaged the whole time. Stacy showed me how to use natural light to enhance the photos and gave me some useful tips about the flow of shooting family sessions in general. We than had an in-home follow up class to discuss post processing and work flow. I was lacking the confidence in my post processing and was happy to hear that I was on the correct path. She also gave me great tips on using the natural light in my house when shooting. Here are a couple of the shots we got of Jade during our first class.

Now onto my class homework. Stacy commented on Jade's room and was surprised that I haven't taken any detail shots of it especially since...as we all know...kids grow up way too fast and before you know it her room will be completely different. I did work really hard when I was pregnant with her, after all, getting her room to be the "perfect" nursery...so why don't I have any of those special details photographed? She also gave me tips on the best way to take advantage of the natural light in certain areas of my home (see pic below of Jade in my living room chair). So my homework is to get those detail shots and use the natural light to the best of it's ability. With keeping everything in mind from our classes I set out to take some shots. Comment below and let me know what you think! Stacy thanks again for the great classes!

Below...her room homework. One main thing I noticed as taking these photos was that although the light seemed good in her room it was not as good as I had hoped…I guess all the trees in my backyard block a lot of the light. I had to bump my ISO all the way up for the most part which did result in some grain in the photos. I am OK with that though...it was more about capturing the memories of her room versus technically perfect photos. On my wish list though is a better camera and a new lens....or two!! Hint hint Mark!

❤ Love that smile ❤