Pregnancy is one of those things. You know what I'm talking about. It is the longest nine months of your life, and it is the quickest nine months of your life.
I feel like it was just yesterday that we found out we were expecting our second child. And then, what felt like a few days later, week 20 rolled around. Just like that! And I found myself already panicking, as you all know! So I created my Pre-Baby Bucket List to help me organize my panic and everything I "needed" to accomplish before our second bundle joins our family.
One of the things on my list that was really important to me is maternity photos. My husband is always behind the camera and takes plenty of photos of Nick and myself, but I've found that we have very few with him in them! Enter Willow & Birch Photography.
I feel like it was just yesterday that we found out we were expecting our second child. And then, what felt like a few days later, week 20 rolled around. Just like that! And I found myself already panicking, as you all know! So I created my Pre-Baby Bucket List to help me organize my panic and everything I "needed" to accomplish before our second bundle joins our family.
One of the things on my list that was really important to me is maternity photos. My husband is always behind the camera and takes plenty of photos of Nick and myself, but I've found that we have very few with him in them! Enter Willow & Birch Photography.
Mike, of Willow & Birch Photography, has been a friend of Macaroni Kid Annapolis since 2014, and I was super excited to snag him as our photographer for these special photos. He wasted no time getting our session on his calendar and asking questions I never even thought to consider! (Like, did my feet swell during my first pregnancy? Because if they did, we need to get the photos done before it happens again!) He calmed my nerves by explaining how to dress my family for the photo shoot, something I always feel clueless about! (And you can read his advice here!)
He had what felt like a million fantastic suggestions and never pushed any photo opportunities that I wasn't interested in or comfortable with (for example, I'm not a bare-belly kind of girl). He asked what I wanted out of the session as well as my "photography style" and made sure to plan his ideas around my answers. (My answer, in case you were wondering, is that I like candid shots more than posed shots.)
When the day came, we met Mike at Quiet Waters Park for our session. It was the first time my family met him and my son, who doesn't sit still EVER (literally, he never sits still), was a perfect gem for Mike. He instantly became best buds with Mike, playing with him, running with him and watching the turtles in the pond with him. And somehow, Mike has this skill mastered where he gave Nick the attention he was "demanding" while capturing the most beautiful photos of our family.
Our family is lucky to have had Mike show us a glimpse into our own lives and we definitely will not hesitate to use him for family photos again!
((As a side note, we received our edited photos a couple weeks after our session. When I sat down with Nick to show him, he saw the first photo and yelled "MIKE!" No joke. My 2 year-old remembered Mike from his one-time, one-hour photo session with him. How many photographers have THAT claim to fame?!))
Willow & Birch Photography provides newborn, maternity and family photo services in the Annapolis, MD and Washington, DC areas. Because he has two children of his own, he is a master of children and family photography.
