New blog

My new blog is now up and running http://www.chapmansphoto.com/blog

My baby turns 1

My youngest daughter turns a year old on the 11th. I can't believe how fast little ones grow! I have loved capturing every moment of her life on camera. My little cuddly baby has turned into a typical walking ONE year old with a temper tantrum when you tell her no. Even still, she is my sweet little baby. With that said, I hope that it would be a reminder for those who are pregnant or who have children to realize how fast our children do grow, and how important it is to capture every moment possible.

Sweetest Smile Contest - Winner Announced

First, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the contest. I had an overwhelming amount of votes over the past 2 weeks. Everyone truly made this a very fun contest for me.
Now, drum-roll please...... The winner of the Sweetest Smile Contest is....


KIERA!!!!


Congratulations to Kiera on being the winner of the contest!

Vote percentiles
Kiera - 48%
Camryn - 30%
Brooke - 8%
Braydon - 8%
Hunter - 6%

19 Month Old Little boy - Fall Photoshoot

Today, I had a photoshoot with an adorable little boy. He was in his own little world! Here is Mr. B!

Isn't he a little blonde cutie?

Sweetest Smile Contest

I am happy to announce that the Top 5 contestants have been chosen for the Sweetest Smile Contest! I had some wonderful adorable entries, and I'd like to thank each and every one of you that participated! The voting panel had a really tough choice narrowing it down.

The Top 5 are as follows:

Brooke
Camryn
Hunter
Kiera
Braydon

Congratulations to these 5 contestants, and good luck to each and every one of you in the final voting round.

Voting for the winner of the Sweetest Smile Contest will begin August 22nd, 2008 and will run for 2 weeks. Details on how to vote will be posted on Aug. 22nd as well.

Again, thank you all for participating!

5 Year Old Little Girl

Today, I had the chance to take photos of my first 5 year old little girl. She was so cute, and such a ham! She even made some of her own poses! I definitely had fun with her! She was an absolute sweetheart!

Here is a sneak peak at Miss J.'s photoshoot

Thanks

I want to thank everyone for their sweetest smile blog contest entries. I've gotten some adorable smiles and some awesome entries. I can't wait to see who the top 5 will be. If you want to enter the contest, please see the post below for details. You still have a little less than a week to enter :) In the meantime, I've been so busy planning my daughters birthday party, and taking their pictures and putting together their birthday invites. It's been a busy two weeks with that. Just dropping off a picture of each child :)

Super fun Cake Smash

Also, just a note that I still have some openings for Halloween/Fall & Winter/Christmas available if you are interested in booking a session. Dates are going fast, so get your spot while you can.

SWEETEST SMILE BLOG CONTEST

I am happy to announce that I am running my very first blog contest. The contest is called "Sweetest Smile." Here are the details: "Sweetest Smile" Contest I am looking for the sweetest, cutest smile of a child, ages Newborn to 5yrs. A smile that you can't help but look at and smile yourself! If you think that your child/children have the sweetest smile ever, please email me a recent (within the past month) snapshot, that you yourself have taken, at heather@chapmansphoto.com. Entries will be accepted through August 4th, 2008 - August 18th, 2008. I will then have an outside impartial panel vote for the top 5 sweetest smiles. The top 5 will be listed here on my blog on August 22nd, 2008. This is where and when your friends, family and strangers will be able to vote or the "sweetest smile." Voting will last for 2 weeks. The winner will receive: **One complimentary session for the child/children in the photo sent in **A portrait from the session will get the cover page of my website (with a signed model release form) **One FREE 5-leaf (10 portraits) 4x6 Brag Book A $200 VALUE Please note that you can only submit ONE entry, however a photo of more than one child is allowed as long as the ages abide with the contest requirements. Contest is NOT available for sessions already made. Session must take place before November 22nd, 2008. Prize has no cash value

Start booking

If you are interested in having your childs pictures done for Halloween and/or Christmas and you are in the Southern Maryland area, now is the time to book. Available dates go by quickly, so please be sure to check out my website at http://www.chapmansphoto.com and contact me via my contact page. I'm on vacation from November 22nd to December 8th, so if you want Christmas portraits done, please be sure to book as soon as possible :) I look forward to hearing from you.

My girls

Had a mini photoshoot with my own girls today. As I wanted to capture my 10 month old standing by herself, as I haven't yet even captured a snapshot of it. And ofcourse, you can't take a picture of one child and not the other. Kayliana posed herself in the picture above. She put her legs just like that and said that she wanted the "lady lamb." Doesn't she look so innocent?

My Sweet little Addison. I put her in the basket to try to get her to sit still. She normally crawls away.

And, my baby is growing up so fast. Here she is standing all by herself. She's taking a few steps here and there, but not fully walking yet. Look how proud she is of herself to be standing up! I'm doing their birthday pictures this weekend so that I can make their party invite and send it out. I will be posting them ofcourse. I also have 2 photoshoots over the next 2 weeks that I will have model release forms for, so I'll be posting those at the end of the month as well. :)

2 yr old cutie

I had a photoshoot with a 2 yr old little girl today. She was such a cutie! She was constant smiles, which, I never get with toddlers! We were supposed to do on-location at a park, but they switched it to in studio because they felt that there would be too many distractions at a park. Toddlers are scary in studio, but she did amazing! This is the first time I've ever used the chef outfit. I thought it was so cute and have been wanting to do something like this for a long time. I'm just glad I finally got to use this idea, and on someone other than my own child. This wood flooring is one of my new fake floors. I have laminate wood flooring in my diningroom that I have used, but to move my entire studio to my diningroom is a pain. So, we went out the other day, and bought the wood flooring to use. I like the lighter color wood better, but felt I needed something in between light and dark. I'll have multiple color wood floorings as time goes by. This is the other flooring we bought. It's laminate but has that stone look. I really like it, and think it works well for a variety of different images. This picture and the very top picture are 2 of my favorites from this photoshoot. Overall, I think she did wonderfully, and I'd love to do another photoshoot with her as she was the best toddler I've ever had a photoshoot with. Her mom said they loved the pictures :) Maybe I'll be doing her maternity shoot in a few months.

The park

We went to a park about an hour away from us called Cosca Regional Park yesterday. It was very beautiful. I took some props, including my pettiskirt with to do some mini photoshoots of my girls and some friends of ours kids if I was given the chance. Yeah, I broke out the pettiskirt, put it on Addison and took 3 pictures!!!! After that, I had 4 kids surrounding her, kids I didn't know asking me a ton of questions. I ended up putting my camera away and getting Addison dressed in regular clothes. I really wanted to get pictures with the beautiful park but I couldn't even get any pictures of my own kids. I'm thinking that we'll need to go back after summer is over when it's not so busy. Fall may be a beautiful time to go since it's got a lot of foliage, the colors would be perfect. The picture above, I cut off her fingertips and she is pretty centered. Had I not centered her, I would have had another kid in the picture because where her pettiskirt ended, there was a kid sitting right there in front of her. Oh well! I'll get another chance one day. Went shopping today and got fake flooring for my photoshoot on Sunday. I have so many ideas, I just hope that she is willing and ready when she gets here! She's 2 yrs old, and I know that is a tough age in studio.. so hopefully all goes well :)

Just my girls

Took my girls outside today, and man, my girls have got to be the hardest to get pictures of. I tried an eyelash shot with Kayliana but I didn't get it in focus as much as I should/could have because she moved. I got a beautiful picture of Addison. Her eyes are absolutely gorgeous and the picture is so crisp and in focus. I love it. We had an old loveseat in my studio, and we've moved it out, throwing it out, to make more room for me. I only have a small studio space to work with and I'm trying to make more room so it's less crowded. I've been using a table to sit on for my studio work because I wasn't able to get far enough back with them being on the floor for the simple fact that the loveseat was there. So now, I have more room to work with, and now I can buy more props and more stuff to make my studio work better :)

Uneventful

I haven't been very busy lately... well, I have, just not with photography.. I've had so much going on that I didn't have much availability this month for a photoshoot anyways. I have a 2 yr old little girl on the 20th of July that I'm excited about. I have a lot of ideas. I really do enjoy child photography, I'm usually pleased and happy after the shoot is over. After that, my schedule for August is almost completely open, so if you are interested in booking in the Southern Maryland area, let me know :) On another note, my youngest baby turned 10 months old. She's growing up so fast! The picture to the side are my 2 girls together. Addison refuses to stand up by herself, even though she can, so Kayliana was holding her up. I needed a vertical picture of them and I tried a few things before they had had enough, but this was the best one I got where they were both smiling. My husband and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary this weekend. I can't believe we've been together so long already! I'm very thankful for everything I have! I'm checking out a new park this week, it's supposed to be beautiful, so I can't wait to take the girls there and get a few photos. Hopefully they will cooperate and let me do a little photoshoot with them while we are there, and I'll be able to come back and post.

Rough

Things have been a little rough for me lately, so I haven't really updated much in the past few weeks. I have been keeping myself busy though, so I'll just show off a few of the photoshoots I've done over the past few weeks here shortly. I'm not sure how I feel about being a photographer here in Southern Maryland. Your locations are pretty limited. And, right now, I do newborn, childrens, teens/seniors, couples and family portraits, but I really think that once I get a bit more experience, I'd love to do newborn and babies only. I really like doing couples and teens, but I think I prefer newborn and babies. On a positive note, we are hoping to move to Sarasota, Florida in about a year. My family lives there and I really miss them. Just a heads up for any of my clients. :) Anyways, here are the pictures. The first few are a photoshoot that I did with 3 kids, ages 12, 10 and 1.5 (I think those are the right ages). Beautiful children! This little boy is absolutely adorable! This was my favorite capture of him throughout the entire photoshoot. He was so fun to work with too! These 2 are the oldest ones. Ofcourse, boys his age do not like getting pictures taken. LOL! I have noticed that with my own nephew. The girl was so willing to do just about anything you asked her to. I think she enjoyed the photoshoot. I have a lot of really nice pictures of her.

Then, I had a couples photoshoot. They seemed so in love and they were so fun to work with! Absolutely willing to do anything and everything I asked of them. They were both very nice people and I'd love to do another photoshoot with them again if they wanted me to!

They were a beautiful couple! And recently, I had a baby boy, 4 months old! I've been around him since birth so I love him dearly. But, ofcourse, as my luck would have it, he didn't really want me to take pictures of him that day. But, I did manage to get some really cute photos from this handsome baby boy. I'm sure he'll be sooo much fun for his 6 month portraits

Isn't he absolutely precious??

I think he's gorgeous and has beautiful eyes as well! I'm not doing very many photoshoots in July though. I'm pretty busy this month between birthday parties and my 10 year anniversary of being with my husband that I only had the adorable 4 month old, I have a 2 yr old on June 20th, and I *might* have an engagement shoot to do on the 13th, but we'll see.

Website

Willie (my husband) has been working on a new webpage for me. It is finally going to be up and running by this afternoon! I'm so excited! I love it! Please feel free to take a look around at http://www.chapmansphoto.com

Whats New

As a photographer in Southern Maryland, I have not had the chance to really get outside much. The weather here has been nuts and just recently started to get better. Since the weather has cleared up and warmed up, I've been outside practicing with my own kids. I've only done 2 photoshoots outdoors and that was while I was visiting family in Florida. I've been having fun with it though, and while my own kids aren't the most cooperative, it gives me some practice :)

Addison (9 mos) - My youngest More of a "snapshot" of my daughter. When we say "So Big" this is what she does. It's adorable!

Kayliana - My daugher (age 2 1/2)

Kayliana is by far the hardest person to take a picture of. She's so "on the go" and I really have to be creative and think of ways for her to be in one place and not go too far and hope that I can get some really great shots of her face - even if she may not be looking at me. I do love this picture though!

So, with my practice, I'm hoping to be more than prepared for my upcoming photo shoots. I only have 2 this month, which is okay by me, it lets me practice beforehand and think of some cute creative ideas of what to do. I have a photoshoot on June 21st of 3 children, and another photoshoot on the 28th of a couple wanting to get their pictures done. I'm really excited to come up with ideas and do these photoshoots.

8 week old

Today, Thursday, May 29th 2008, I had my very first stranger photoshoot. An 8 week old. Such a very very tough age! Not quite small enough to do the things you would with a newborn and definitely not big enough to be able to do much else. I did manage to get a few cute shots, and I also had my try at "fake flooring".. except, the floor is real, the baseboard and color of the "wall" is not.

I was excited to get a picture of him smiling in his sleep

In his baptism outfit

He was such a cute little baby boy

My "fake flooring" Not to keen on this picture, but I really do like the bowl. It's just meant for babies that can control their head/neck a bit better or smaller babies that can actually "cradle" in it.

Overall, I was happy with the session. Hopefully the mother was impressed enough to come back when he's older.

Beach with my Family

Me and my baby girl, Addison

My older sisters birthday is coming up and I haven't seen her in awhile. So, me and my girlies went to go visit her today. We hung out at the beach and had a lot of fun. Just took some snapshot pictures to cherish the memories. Addison's been teething, and she's got social and separation anxiety, so she was pretty moody today. But, we still had fun.

Addison loved playing in the sand, but then she got hungry, and laid down and had a bottle. I couldn't help myself but take a picture of her cute little feetsies with sand all over them. Who can resist baby feet anyways? Happy Birthday Lisa

Kayliana and my nephew Collin

Kayliana and my nephew, Collin, had an absolute blast finding sea-shells, digging in the sand making "towers" and "houses", and throwing rocks into the water. It's been awhile since Kayliana's been able to play with her cousin so I'm sure she was loving it. When we left "Paw-Paw's" house, I asked her if she was ready to go, and she told me no.

Finally have a blog

I've been contemplating on putting a blog together for awhile now, and I'm just now getting to it. I don't have a lot of time tonight, but I will be changing the layout of everything to fit "me" and "Chapman Photography" soon. A little about me: My name is Heather, and I'm from Southern Maryland. I have a wonderful husband, Willie, and together we have 2 daughters, Kayliana & Addison. Kayliana is my oldest, who will be turning 3 in September. Addison is nearly 9 months old and sure is a handful. But, my daughters are my life, my inspiration. I got my first DSLR in December 2005. A Canon Rebel XT. I fell in love with my camera and it got such great photos! I knew a few months after having it that I wanted to be a pro photographer one day, and that is what I wanted to do as far as a career goes. However, I was working as a full time retail manager and never really had the time to learn my camera in and out like I had truly wanted. Then, along came Summer of 2007. My husband and I talked a lot about daycare expenses, gas, etc. It was that point on that we had decided that I would just become a SAHM. I had Addison September 11, 2007 and I became a SAHM of 2 beautiful little girls. It wasn't until I went to Target to get our family pictures, Kayliana's 2nd birthday and Addison's newborn pictures done that I realized that I really needed and wanted to work on knowing my camera. I hated Target's pictures. The lady rushed us, the backgrounds were all wrinkly, and the lady just kept commenting how Kayliana was not cooperating, even though she was a normal shy 2 yr old that WOULD laugh and smile if you could make her. I left Target that day very unhappy and more determined than ever to start learning my Rebel XT. I did so much research, so much reading on ILP, so much practicing. It didn't take me long before I knew what my XT could and couldn't do. I was then drooling over the 40D. I know, never need to upgrade until you've known your camera in and out, but, I couldn't help myself. I got my 40D, fell in love, and learned that camera (still am learning new things with it all the time) and here I am... on my way to being a photographer. Right now, it's still a very PT thing for me. I'm still practicing and building my portfolio, and I'm spending the time with my girls while they are little for as long and as much as I can before they go to school. I also know that we want another baby in a few years (he/she will be our last), and I know that until they are all in school, I don't want this to be a full time thing. I get the best of both worlds this way.. I get to go at my pace with photography and do something I love, a couple times a month, and I get to spend every waking moment with my 2 beautiful baby girls. Anyways, that's my story :) Heather