a portrait a day... Day 4=Chloe

Day 4 is my niece Chloe, who is 4 and a half years old. She makes her fingers come alive and uses them as toys. She loves to twirl and dance and wear princess dresses. She plays with her older brother really well and is quite the little cuddler. She has the cutest voice and reminds me a lot of our mum who passed away 9 years ago. To me, she is definitely a little Bonjour. She is joyful and mischievous, and will always give you a great big Chloe smile.

a portrait a day... Day 3=Adi

Adi is 4 and a half years old. She loves to wrestle and wear princess dresses. She has the cutest little lisp and loves to live life at her own pace. She loves to cuddle and run her fingers through your hair (which is John's favourite). She lets me take pictures of her and her cute infectious smile. Her blue eyes capture the light amazingly and make such a pretty combination with her platinum blonde hair. What a cutie.

a portrait a day... Day 2=Olivier

I enjoyed so much blogging about my niece, Emma, that I decided to change my blog challenge and to blog about each of my nieces and nephews with photos that I've taken of them recently.

So for day two, I'm blogging about my nephew, Olivier. He turned 6 a few weeks ago and is just one of the funnest little kids. He'll run around looking at everything around him and will also play quietly with lego for ages. He is super creative and is one smart kid. He is a bundle of energy and loves to learn. I took this photo of him when we were visiting my family up in Tacoma. We spent the day in Seattle and sat by the sea and let the kids run around. I think he was spinning around when I took this shot. Love this kid.

a portrait a day... Day 1=Emma

In order to challenge my photography and my blogging, I've decided to set myself up with some challenges for the weeks and months ahead. I'm starting with a week of portraits, where I take a new portrait every day for a week.

I'm starting with my niece Emma...

She will be 6 in February. She just lost her first tooth (bottom middle) and is the cutest little thing. She loves tickling my baby Sophie and making her laugh and smile. She is really intelligent and will talk your ear off. She likes to plan and organise and is full of smiles and giggles. I love that she lets me take photos of her and when I took this one, I just called her name, and she turned around and gave me this smile. Love those dimples.

Here is Emma:

Jan 2011 Favourites

This lens is the one I use almost exclusively and I love it. It's a really simple one but has improved my photography in huge ways. I love my SAM DT 1.8f/50mm lens:



I am SO lucky to get Photoshop for free and was able to upgrade to CS5! This really is a huge part of my photography business so I'm super grateful for this. I love all the fun actions and being able to batch resize/edit hundreds of photos with the touch of just a few buttons.



We just bought this diaper bag two days ago and I love it. It is a Skip Hop design, which is a company run by a couple who are parents, and so they really have amazing ideas. It has great pockets, is completely waterproof, has handles so you can strap it onto your stroller, and is huge, but has an outside zipper that makes it smaller. We flew home yesterday using the bag for the first time and we were able to put all of Sophie's things in it and MORE!



My husband bought me this super cool MacBook Pro Incase cover that I've been eyeing for a while and it's in my favourite colour. I love it:



We also just got this remote for my camera and we are having so much fun with it. It works up to 100 feet away and has 16 different RF channels:



And finally, my goal for this year is to purchase a Canon 5D. I've been saving money from my shoots and I'm just over halfway there to being able to buy a used one.