The last shoot I did before Lori and I left for our surgery was a maternity session with Becki. Now that I’m back to work, the first shoot I did was with her 5 week old baby, Kaden.

I love photographing babies because they are so expressive but you have to be quick. Talk about mood swings. You also have to be ready for the unexpected, especially when the diapers come off. Becki was a great sport even though Kaden used every opportunity to soil her clothing.

But the best thing about photographing babies, is that you don’t have to worry about retouching double chins, and winkles.

My first shoot after getting back from surgery was one I was looking forward to. Kaline, who has modeled for me since 2002 ( and is featured in two of my all time favorite photographs, Mountain Peek, and Lady of the Lake) had her second child and three days after Cecilia’s birth I visited the newly expanded family at their home.

Her husband, Ben, works for the Post Office so I figured if you work for the company that does more deliveries than anyone else, why would you trust your most important delivery to a stork?

Unfortunately, the Post Office doesn’t make Priority One boxes large enough to ship a 7 pound newborn. So Photoshop came to the rescue. We photographed Cecilia at their home in a generic box filled with pink peanuts. Then back at the studio I photographed the Priority One box with the pink backdrop. A few minutes of Photoshop work blended the two photographs.

As we were photographing Cecilia, we had to rescue her a couple of times as she would gradually sink into the packing peanuts as she wiggled around. But she looked entirely comfortable sleeping in her box. However the shoot came to an end when little Cecilia burped up. Well that is an understatement. Think Mt. Vesuvious. I didn’t realize a baby could drink that much. It pretty much made a mess of her and the peanuts, but fortunately by then I had the photos I needed.