Lucky, lucky me that I get to work with these two beautiful gals every year around their birthday.  While I have a lot of advantages when it comes to these two because we know each other really well, they love getting their portraits taken and they are typically up for anything, there are still many things Mom & Dad & I have to collaborate on before we actually start the session.

1) Location, location, location…. When you photograph kids every year, or families for that matter, they want variety.  While it is kinda cool to pick one place and shoot there every year to show how the family has changed, it is not my thing (and I am guessing most of my clients would agree that it isn’t theirs either).  So, when I photograph the same kiddos year after year, it is one of my challenges to come up with new, fun, hip places to shoot them annually.  Typically this is a collabrative effort.  As many of my clients can atest to, we start planning for the following year’s session as we wrap up this years!  My clients have been amazing at coming up with cool themes and new locations throughout Orange County.

2)  Is there a location that best capture the kiddos or the family at this time in their history:  For example, and I know you ALL know this, my family spends all their extra time at the swimming pool.  AND the swimming pool is located at Soka University.  So it just made sense that in 2012 we photographed my family on Soka’s campus.  AND yes, we got one picture with the pool in the background… Thanks to Emily Ivey at Fresh Ivey photography for shooting the session!

When it came to deciding a location for the twins session, we considered a number of factors, such as where have we shot in the past, the age of the girls, what would be a fun spot to capture their true personalities, and where could we get a lot of different “looks” in walking proximity.  We came up with the Fun Zone in Newport Beach.

3) Now, what should they wear- Coordinate but don’t be matchy/ matchy. My mantra.  The clothing should match the location, the age and the story you are trying to tell about the kids/ family.  In the twins case, we wanted bright bold colors to go with the colorful background of the ferris wheel and arcade, more neutral clothing with a pop of color for the beach and denim for the candy story.

Often I also encourage incorporating props or personal items to make the session my client’s unique story.  Since we went to the candy story, the candy made a perfect prop!

Here is the results!  Enjoy!