Here are some of the cuties not featured in the other *Janie & Jack* post, I was just waiting on permission from these moms to post their little darlings! These are sessions I shot last month at the Janie & Jack store on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica. It is soooooo hard for me to walk out of that place without buying the bugbug a whole new wardrobe!

Well……after spotty, sporadic, inconsistent email issues for months, my email is now completely down, I’ve receieved NOTHING since yesterday morning. My project for today is FINDING A NEW HOSTING compnay so I can resolve this problem once and for all. Please bear with me over the next week as my site may be down as I transition servers.

Meanwhile, if you have emailed me (ever!) at my jenniferwilsonphotoDOTcom address and I have not replied, PLEASE email my alternate email address of jenwilsonphoto AT yahoo.com (spaces left so the spambots don’t pick up the email address) OR please feel free to call me at area code 661 number 803-6465.

Sorry for the communication breakdown. It is very frustrating :(

jen

Meet Meredith….She is the most adorable, most LOVED, most WANTED baby I’ve met in quite awhile :)
We held this session at the beautiful W Hotel in Westwood. It was a gorgeous setting for an incredible new family. Christine and Marc travelled all the way from Germany to China to adopt their precious new baby girl, from China to Los Angeles to complete legal paperwork, then back to Germany the morning after our shoot. You would THINK that they would be exhausted, but the whole family just GLOWED with love. I confess I can be a little bit of a sap, but I got all teary when I first walked into the room. I’ve been excited about this session for awhile, you could just tell what a special bond these three have found. (Many thanks to my friend and fabulous photographer Angela Calderon for the referral!)

You know how some people are just *your people*??? That’s immediatly how I felt about Christine and Marc; if they lived just a teeny bit closer I’d want them to be my new best friends :) New mommy Christine is an incredible author, if you have little ones you should consider purchasing her book The Ultimate Volunteer Guidebook for Young People. Not to be outdone, new daddy Marc is an accomplished author himself, he has a bunch :) but I’ll just link to two MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, An Interactive Guide to the World of Sports (Sports by the Numbers) because I’m a HUGE baseball fan and University of Oklahoma Football, An Interactive Guide to the World os Sports (Sports by the Numbers) ’cause I grew up in Norman, Oklahoma :)

Alright, I’m blabbing on - and I know what you really want is to see photos, right???? Okay - here is a sneak peek (I’m still proofing , I can’t stop, there are too many cute photos!!)

W Hotel photography, Westwood baby photogrpaher, Beverly Hills Baby photographer, Beverly Hills children’s photographer, Los Angeles children’s photographer

This is my third time to photograph children and babies at the Janie & Jack store in Santa Monica - I always have the best time, met the nicest people…oh, and yes, take some super cute photos!
Here are just a few…hopefully I’ll be adding more soon after I get the *okay* from the parents, but meanwhile…aren’t these adorable???

Santa Monica child photographer, Santa Monica children’s photorapher, Santa Monica baby photographer

Alright…not REALLY, I didn’t win first place or anything, but a fun story all the same… I attended the WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) convention and entered a few prints into their international print competition….well - I’m proud to say that two of my prints scored high enough to be displayed at the show! I receieved two *Accolades of Excellence* it is so exciting to see my work hung amongst all these big international photo-superstars:) I heard (not verified yet) that there were over 3000 entries and approx 300 prints were chosen to hang - so I’m pretty happy.

WPPI in Vegas is always a crazy fun time - I get to hang out with all my talented photog-buddies and talk shop (Yes, and have cocktails…and play poker…and giggle into the night with my roomies..but I digress..) This year was especially busy - remember last fall’s smoking hot maternity sessions (Tina & Heather) Well….this time I got to photograph both new little babies plus another new family with an adorable girl…mixing 3 sessions into the convention craziness was challenging - but fun! I’ll post a sneak peek of the Vagas session later this week, but for now, wanna see my award-winning photographs?

Okay, since you asked….. (heehee) This first one is of two of my favorite little girls, I love their laughing little faces! This print is titled *Bed Bugs*:

and next we have my great big lummox of a puppy…this is my dog Luke (aka *love of my life*!) He is the happiest dog on the planet when we go to the beach, if you look closely you can see the reflection of the shoreline in his eyes….i love photographing dogs so much, but I have to admit that BLACK dogs can be very challenging to capture! I have this print BIG in my home, it is titled *Beach Boy*:

…and then just to be random…here is a cute moment I captured the other day:

AND, just because I’m feeling *chatty* - I’ll share a cute little BugBug story….so, we (Ali and I) are watching *American Idol* tonight and Brooke White comes on to sing *Every Breath You Take*…well, my sweet little princess KEPT saying (over and over) “Mommy -she’s so pretty - she looks like you!” You gotta love amazing compliments from 3 year olds! I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’ve got 15 years and *!@$% pounds on Brooke - hey, if she wants to think I look that young and beautiful, who am I to correct her? I think I’ll just enjoy….

She’s not TOTALLY naive though, as I was putting her into bed I asked “Want me to sing to you like Brooke?” to which she repied “NO Mommy - don’t sing!” haha

Sooooo….Jake got this massive Star Wars Lego droid carrier thingy for his birthday, and he and Victor have had many a Friday-night-droid-carrier-building-evening since then….and FINALLY, they are done!!

Can I just say one quick thing about how HAPPY I am that the lego-building assistant job goes to the man of the house?? heehee. 1368 is a LOT of legos! The best part (for ME) is that Jake normally suffers from a little-known ailment called *photographer’s child syndrome*. This USUALLY makes him very un-cooperative when the camera come out. Lucky me, I’ve learned the secret!! Just live through several months of intense lego construction, and lo and behold, he is cured :) I have a camera-ready child!! (okay, okay, ignore the ripped jeans - I didn’t want to push my luck!)

the finished product:

setting up the scene…

the lego-buildging-dream-team…

…and one more, just to show off that precious little face :)

I am VERY excited to share that I’ve been asked to present a 2 1/2 day seminar this summer at the Golden Gate School of Photography in northern California. The other instuctors are all SO impressive, I’m so flattered to be in such fantastic company! Here is a quick overview of the *other guys*: (haha - saving myself for last!)

Bob Davis, Canon Explorer of Light

Andre Costantini - Professional Lighting Techniques

Juli Cialone - Marketing & Sales

Paul Gero - Weddings

Dave Newman - Mastering Portraiture

Eliot Khuner/John Paulson -
Pro Photography Fundamentals

Kimberly Sayre - Album Design/Photoshop

….and then…there’s ME!!!
My class!!!

I’ve got all kind of fun stuff planned and great information to share…soooo…if you want to come play and learn with me - come on out!

jen :)

Just a quick note to say that if you were thinking about booking a session this spring - you should probably call sooner than later! :) (ha! that’s my tactful way of saying *you need to hustle*!)
March is completly booked up and I have just 4 appointments left for April :) The May calendar will open for booking on March 10, but for each month we have an interest list. If you know that you have family in town in July (for example) please let us know and we’ll put you on our interest list. AS we open each month for bookings, those folks on the list will have *first dibs*. Soooo- no obligation, but if you KNOW you’ll want an appointment in a specific month - let us know!

And because no blog post is complete without photos…let me share a few from my own personal 366 project. (366 project= a photo every day of 2008!) Here are a few from January….

Some wonderfully generous photographers have banded together and are holding an auction to benefit Thirst Relief International, a charity that helps provide fresh drinking water to areas that need help. Learn more about Thirst Relief here. If you are a photographer and you want to bid (but if you outbid me on my faves, I’ll be mad!!!) visit the auction site and click on the Thirst Relief banner.

These *superstars* of photography are auctioning off private mentoring sessions, a one-on-one chance to learn from the best in the biz. I am bidding up a storm!! I hope I win a bunch, I couldn’t imagine a better way to expand my photography and business knowlegde, while helping an incredible charity at the same time! Last year I was away from my computer at the end, so I didn’t *win* any of my favorites and I was very sad ~~sniff~~

This year, I am in it to winit!!
Want to know who I’m bidding on?? Most of the photog are wedding *rockstars*, and we all know I don’t shoot weddings - but there is still so much to learn from them!

Okay, right now I am WINNING these auctions!

Gary Fong Gary’s blog Gary shot my wedding back in 1999!! He was honestly the reason I became a photographer - I just loved how much joy and passion he felt and I wanted to be that fulfilled!! He has since gone on to become one of the MOST RESPECTED and ADMIRED photographers ever, plus he’s a business and marketing genius.I love love love my job - and I have him to thank for inspiring me! Last year his mentoring session went for almost $7000 ~~gulp~~ so I’m not confident I’m going to WIN, but I’m trying!

Laura Novak Laura’s site Laura is a great wedding AND portrait photographer - and she is the owner ofStrategy Avenue a business resource site for photographers. I’m always looking for ways to improve my own business, and I know that sitting down with LAura would be immensly helpful to me!

Becker Becker’s blog So Cal wedding photographer and marketing genius. I’m loving his daily videos on the [ b ] schoolI **KNOW** a 90 minute seesion with [ b ] would yield all kinds of cool new ideas (and maybe even improve my poker skills :)

I’m a little crazy today! I’m in the lead for Jeff & Julia Woods, Vicki Taufer, and Sarah Petty, all very successful, very amazing portrait shooters! Yay for me!

Wish me luck!!!!

ah. Time to stop being a blog-slacker.

Let’s take a brief jump back in time to last month :) Lily is one of my favorite little girls, she is always such a bundle of energy, full of silliness and just a lot of fun! Now she has taken on a new role, that of big sister!! This was my first time to meet Sara - and in addition to being beautiful she was just a happy little pumpkin…..

Alrighty, not a traditional portrait, but very much a *sign of the times* right now especially here in Southern California!

Los Angeles children’s photographer, Los Angeles baby photographer, LA baby photographer

I don’t know what they are putting in the water in Vegas - but ALL the future mommies I am fortunate enough to photograph are just amazingly beautiful!!! Meet Heather - she is just as sweet as she is pretty…. (okay, okay, Mark is pretty darned cute too!)…but who stole my heart???? Their big lovable pretty-girl Carrera - she was such a love sponge!!!

Las Vegas meternity photographer, Las Vegas baby photographer, Las Vegas children’s photographer

haha - okay, i don’t mean *oldest* as in OLD (she’s only a month older than me!), I mean we’ve been friends FOREVER, or 1300/52ths (joke) She recently bought the COOLEST farmhouse outside of Houston - we had a great time catching up! Here’s just a few - can’t wait to do more on my next trip to TX!

How stinkin’ cute is are her kids? Matthew is a junior this year and Aidan is just the most adorable two year old ever! Look at those big brown eyes! I’ll be headed back to Houston in April and hope I can catch a few of her oldest son!