I am an African-American photographer, but this baby is the first African-American newborn, other than ones I’ve created with my husband, that I’ve had a chance to photograph!  The baby’s mom got a kick out of me saying that I didn’t know many black people.  LOL.  It is the San Fernando Valley, after all. Diverse with many colors, just not brown.

Now, if I could only photograph what me and my friends jokingly call The Unicorn of the Valley – a chocolate, baby girl. Someday.  Well, maybe sooner than later.  I found a meetup group called PAAC – Parents of African American Children (some people who have black kids, aren’t black themselves) are have an inkling that my portfolio is going to get more diverse quickly. But of the currently pregnant women in this group, everyone’s having a boy.

I’d love to be the Angelina Jolie of baby photographers – photograph babes from all the nations. 🙂

I’m sponsoring a local school by donating a photography package. I get to advertise via banner on their fence and I made my first banner and it looks so lovely! How exciting! I used to think I’d hate the business end of photography, but now that I’m diving in, I find that, at the very least, I love advertising and marketing.  I love having to be creative and figure out new ways to think about old things.  And I’ve noticed that my brain is changing. Once I started thinking of ideas for new promotions, they come at a quicker pace now, with no prompting. I’ll be in a car and see something on the side of a building, and boom!  New idea!  Sort of like songwriting. Now, if I could only get back into auto in that area again…

My son has finally learned to tricycle around our yard on the grass, super fast, as he would say.  Our driveway is long, but very craggy, so it’s rough going.  He often asks to go out on “the big sidewalk” out front, but that takes adult supervision, so most often we say, “go play in the yard with your brother.” Yes, having two kids now seems like genius.  Here he is, whizzing around the yard. He paused just long enough for me to capture him here.

Last weekend I had the chance to photograph two young brothers who I’ve photographed once before.  The first time was Halloween, last week was for Easter. This time, a year older, they were hilarious. The older brother just turned 5 and the “baby” as we call him is almost 3.  And the personalities that have arisen are hilarious.  What used to be a timid, introverted baby, is now the family crack up.  Although he still thinks his older brother is the funniest person on earth, he loves to get it on the act.  The funny faces he made were so great that I had to include them here in the outtakes.

And since moms have to play photographer, they rarely show up anywhere in the actual photos. So I made their mom, Amanda, get in the photos, especially since she was all prettied up in her green dress.

This is one of my favorite little girls to photograph. This is my 4th time shooting with her. This was an Easter shoot with her and her super cute baby brother, but here she is alone in all her Easter cuteness.