Shanna Chess Photography

Sweet little Elsie and her mom came to the studio yesterday.  She's going to be three in July, and these pictures are a surprise for Dad's birthday--so shhhh!  Don't tell him!  :) She reminds me so much of my daughter!  Absolutely adorable, funny, blond and blue eyes and only 2 months older.  Her mom even did her hair like I do :)  She loved making silly sounds and dancing along to my Pandora station for toddlers.  She was such a treat.  Enjoy!

Look at this adorable little man!  Marshall came to me for his portraits a little over 3 weeks old.  He was 9 pounds at birth!  Can you believe it??  He wears it well, haha :)  I loved the colors his mama chose for the backdrops.  Enjoy!!

I extended a special mini session to the families of Big Little School where my daughter attends preschool.  And the lovely director, Lee, approved!  It was such a fun day for me!  I got to meet so many adorable kiddos that go to the same school as my daughter, and also their wonderful families :) Enjoy!

Little man Oscar was such a joy to photograph!  The first newborn in my new studio!  And it made me sooo happy :)  Photographing newborns is what I enjoy most and the main reason why I built the studio.  He was amazing--slept the whole time and barely let out a peep while I was posing him!  He gave me lots of smiles, and oh the hair!!  Love the strawberry blonde :)  He also liked to suck on one side of his bottom lip and he even had given himself a little hickey there.  So cute.  I can't wait to see some of his images in print!  Enjoy!

Raelee is my youngest daughter and I just love photographing her!  She is such a smiley baby and quite funny actually.  And I loved having my studio to photograph her in!  But I can't believe my little baby is 9 months old already!  We take monthly photos, but the next time I do an actual photo shoot with her, my baby will be a year old and a toddler!  Wow, this first year has just flown by!  Enjoy her sweet little face :)

So this was my first "real" session in the studio--not a mini session where I have one set-up and have short little sessions back to back.  This was the real deal--up to 2 hours and now that I'm in my studio and have all my props in there, parents can look at what I have and pick and choose what they want!  And that's what Tyler's mom did :)  She had so many cute ideas and brought some super cute hats!  Which made me realize I have pretty much only newborn sized hats and that I need to work on my older baby and toddler sizes.  So we had a great time and I absolutely loved taking this little guy's pictures.  We even used my front yard for a few shots since the rain took a break.  Enjoy!

Please bare with me.  I am trying to figure out Google+ and I noticed there were pictures that I uploaded to this blog on there.  I only saw really old images and things like my logo or the background design that I uploaded when I first opened my business.  So I deleted them from Google+.  Apparently, that deletes them, and ALL OF MY PHOTOS EVER UPLOADED from this blog as well :(  Yes, I am yelling. This will take a very long time and some images are off my computers and on my external hard drive by now. I need to decide how far back I am wanting to fix the posts. So I am slowly re-uploading and editing blog posts from the past almost 2 years.  Ugh.  It may take a while.  All the pictures can be seen in my portfolio here .  Sorry and thanks for your understanding!

I had 3 beautiful families sign up for my Easter Mini Sessions this past weekend.  They were my first photo shoots in my NEW STUDIO!  Ahh!  I'm so excited to have my own space.  And my husband is so excited that my plethora of props is out of our house :)  Stay tuned for a blog post with pretty pictures of my new cozy space. The kiddos loved the rocking chair--I use it with almost every session that has little ones.  They all love it!  And my bunny and chicks and plastic eggs were a hit too :)  I love how the set-up turned out and am really happy with how all the sessions went. Enjoy!