Eugene, Oregon baby photographer: Happy Birthday Holland!

Happy birthday, Holland! This little lady is one year old now, and I was so happy to see her in my studio again to celebrate her special day. 

The last time I saw Holland was when I was doing her newborn photographs. Even then you could see the curls she inherited from her dad starting to twist through her brown hair, and it’s even more obvious now that her hair has lightened and grown out a bit. She looks so much like her big brother, Harrison, whom I also photographed as a newborn. Obviously Harrison has grown quite a bit too, but you can check out Holland’s newborn pictures here (which include big bro) to compare their sweet faces. 

Holland has some great facial expressions, and was very animated throughout her baby photography session. I think Harrison has been busy using his influence as older brother to teach her how to be a ham in front of the camera! It was fun to capture her smiles, frowns, and silly faces.

I also loved the cute outfits Holland’s mom chose for her. Red and pink are traditionally considered clashing colors, but as I’ve experimented with different combinations during my years as a baby and child photographer, I’ve found that almost any colors can work together if you use some balance and creativity. In this case, I gave equal weight in the collage to both red and pink, so there’s almost a Valentine’s day quality to it. The dramatically darker and lighter backgrounds keep it distinct, while the white ties it all together. 

I love the idea of using pearls in baby photography. Since pearls are such an elegant, grownup touch, it makes little Holland look almost like she’s playing dress-up with some of mommy’s things—especially since the necklace we used with the red dress is so oversized for such a little person! The dress-up idea is accentuated by the feathers and red party dress, which both have glamorous undertones that are adorable and somewhat humorous when worn by a baby girl. Holland is so irresistibly cute, and those big brown eyes are enough to make you fall in love at first sight!

We didn’t stay fancy the whole time though: A cake smash was included in Holland’s birthday session. She liked her cake at first, although she was very dainty about it and made hardly any mess at all. You can see there’s almost zero frosting on her face—she kept it all on her hands, like sticky pink gloves. The frosting exploration was fun for a while, but eventually Holland decided enough was enough, and burst into tears. It’s actually not an uncommon reaction in cake smash photography sessions. After all, there’s only so much photo taking and sugar a baby can take!

Holland really did do a great job though, and it was so nice to see her and her family again. It was exciting to see how much Holland has grown, and I had a wonderful time doing this session!