DFW BABY PHOTOGRAPHER | WEEK 34

August 29, 2018

This week was a big transition for this DFW baby photographer. We went from sipping drinks on the beach to sharpening pencils for the first day of school all in a matter of days. There was a lot of laundry involved post-trip, and a lot of getting back into the routine. So basically, boring, boring, boring. I hate to sell it to you that way, but it’s the truth.

DFW BABY PHOTOGRAPHER | WEEK 34

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Meet the teacher night. My boy dressed up in his new boy scout uniform as he was one of the kids to work the Cub Scout signup table at this same event. We got about two seconds with his teacher–those things are always so hectic! Holden was very excited about being in her classroom though–she was one of the two teachers he was hoping for. Looking forward to a fabulous school year!

236 | 365 Brothers. Despite the age difference, they seem to play well together. H loves building block towers for his lil bro to destroy.

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Mommy and baby. I’m getting ready to cold turkey this dude off bottles. He is 14 months, and I’ve allowed him to have a night bottle because I knew we would be traveling over the summer and I thought it would be easier to get him to sleep in unfamiliar territory if I kept that bottle in the picture. At least, that’s how I have justified it. It’s definitely time to say goodbye, and I think I’ve hung onto this tradition more out of me not wanting to let go. J is our final baby, and once I feed him that last bottle that will be it. Forever. It’s hard to say goodbye, knowing that he rarely lets me cuddle him outside of bottle time. I asked my husband to nab a photo so I can remember this by. I love this for its authenticity too–I’m not wearing anything special and baby J is wearing his ‘jailbird’ jammies. We aren’t picture perfect, but this picture IS perfect.

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Last day of summer!! Spent some turtle time in the pool.

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First day of first grade.

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It’s just me and the little guy for most of the days now. He is bored without big brother around. I’m trying my best to keep him busy, so it’s toys, toys everywhere.

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Waiting….
Wishing brother would get home from school.

H Parker Photography is a DFW Baby Photographer with a residential studio in Roanoke,TX.
She specializes in classic, timeless studio baby photographs.

DFW BABY PHOTOGRAPHER | WEEK 22

June 4, 2018

Alright folks, Week 22 meant bye bye school for this DFW baby photographer and family. Bye bye to my beloved routine and hello chaos and constant questions from the six year old. Seriously, today is Monday, the first full non-weekend day of summer and by 1:07pm I was ready to pull my hair out from the amount of questions. I know this is a common thing, and I don’t want to stifle his curiosity, but OMG I need two seconds of nobody whining, nobody asking for a snack and nobody asking a question ABOUT ANYTHING.

In case you don’t have a six year old and have no idea what I’m talking about, let me offer a quick snippet into 5 seconds of my life today:

Holden: Why is my hair curly? Why did we have Judd? Did you decide or did God decide? Can I have a Lunchable at Aldi? How many books can I get at the library? Is it okay if I have a snack? What if it’s a healthy snack? Where can you do podracing in America? What does the word demonstrate mean? Do we have a CD player? Why does our TV play CDs? Why does lightening make a pop noise? Why is the gym roof leaking? What are you going to do at the gym, the treadmill? Will Judd have cake on his birthday? What kind of cake did you order? Can he have cake on his real birthday and at his party? Can I have cake too? How much cake? Will everyone be there? When is Gigi coming to town? Can I sleep upstairs in her room? When is golf camp? When is Vacation Bible School? Where am I doing Vacation Bible school at first? Is VBS like my normal school? Do I have to sing a lot at VBS? What if I don’t want to sing? What kinds of snacks will be at VBS? Can I bring my snap bracelet?

Literally that is about 10 seconds of conversation. Moving on.

So, week 22 was split–the first half was the last week of school and the back half was the first few days of summer. I’m both terrified and thrilled to see what the remaining weeks of summer hold.

DFW BABY PHOTOGRAPHER | WEEK 22

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Our baby is almost one!! He is cruising like a champ, and on the cusp of walking independently. Mama, Dada and big brother have all taken guesses as to when baby J will take his first steps. Whoever gets closest can choose a special treat that day (the thing is, no matter who wins I suspect we will end up with a DQ blizzard.) #greatmindsthinkalike At the moment, baby J loves walking up and down the entryway behind his plethora of push toys. He gets SUPER mad though when he runs into something (his steering abilities aren’t *quite* up to snuff yet. He is a tantrum thrower, even at 11 months old, and I am super scared of what his toddler years will bring.

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Speaking of little people growing up, our oldest son graduated from kindergarten. Surprisingly, I felt less tearful about this “graduation” than I did his preschool graduation. I think it helps knowing that next year he will be at the same school, with some of his old classmates. Candid photo of the boy with his wonderful teacher, Ms. Di.

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Not the best photo composition-wise or anything, but we had a lot going on last week and I wasn’t always in the mood to tote the big girl camera along. Another quick candid shot of my boy and some of his friends at the end of school pool party we hosted. It was great having so many of his buddies come over on the last day of school–it took the sting out of those ‘last day of school blues’. Yes, I did say ‘last day of school blues’. My boy was sniffling and crying on the last day of school over missing his friends, teacher and learning over the summer. Glad he got his mind off everything for a bit and had a blast with friends.

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Accomplishing a little summer reading outside under the shade of the porch.

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What’s summer without a ton of swimming? Baby J enjoying splash time.

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Trying to avoid the summer slide by doing a little reading, writing and ‘rithmetic over the summer.

H Parker Photography is a DFW Baby Photographer with a residential studio in Roanoke,TX.
She specializes in classic, timeless studio baby photographs.

DFW BABY PHOTOGRAPHER | PROJECT 365 | MAY 2018

June 4, 2018

may 2018 project 365 collage

H Parker Photography is a DFW Baby Photographer with a residential studio in Roanoke,TX.
She specializes in classic, timeless studio baby photographs.

DFW BABY PHOTOGRAPHER | JUDD 10 MONTHS

April 15, 2018

JUDD | BABY BOY | TEN MONTH PHOTO SESSION |

SITTER SESSION | MILESTONE BABY PHOTOGRAPHY

Judd’s 10 month photo session went much better than his milestone session last month! His crawling has only gotten more proficient, so the whole chasing him around thing was an issue this time again. However, the haircut and his attitude during the session made quite a bit of difference. Also, cheerios. Lots and lots of cheerios used as bribery.

As a DFW baby photographer, I treasure these monthly photo sessions of my baby. I can’t wait to see them all together when he turns one!

If you’d like to take a look back at the past few months, here are the links:

H Parker Photography is a DFW Baby Photographer with a residential studio in Roanoke,TX.
She specializes in classic, timeless studio baby photographs.

Ft. Worth Newborn Photographer l Behind the Scenes

August 25, 2015

My job is exciting! I click a button on my camera and then poof the magic happens and everything is done—NOT!!

The truth is, being a photographer is incredibly interesting and brings great joy and value to my life, but there is much more to this job than just clicking the shutter. Want to know what really happens behind the scenes, then keep reading!

EDITING

Duh- this one is pretty obvious. Okay, maybe it’s not obvious—I have no idea what non-photogs think of being a photographer. I strive to get my images as perfect as possible in camera, but the truth is that when you are working with little munchkins there isn’t always time for me to change my camera settings. Other times I have the perfect picture in camera but someone has a boogie coming out of their nose. I don’t want to miss a perfect shot because a kid needs their nose wiped for the 1,000^th time, as it is simply easier to make that boogie go bye-bye in post processing.

Trophy Club Newborn Photographer | H. Parker Photography | www.HParkerPhotography.com

Looking through the unedited files after a newborn session and picking out the cream of the crop.

I use a Bamboo Wacom tablet for editing. It’s like using a digital pencil instead of a mouse. This helps a ton with my wrist pain and now I can’t really remember how to edit without it.

And checkout my blog post where I show you how I edit a newborn image!

EMAILS/ADMIN WORK

This takes up SO MUCH TIME!! You would think the majority of my time is spent actually taking photographs, but in reality I devote an hour and a half each day to various administrative tasks like answering emails, creating blog posts, sending invoices, etc. Boring stuff.

PINTEREST

Why yes, I get to Pinterest as part of my job! It’s my job to take amazing photographs of my clients, but in order to do that I want my clients to be looking their best. Thus, I like to keep a current Pinterest account with “What to Wear” inspiration for all my clients. I also like to pin ideas for cake smashes and newborn sessions.

LOCATION SCOUTING

One of the most excruciating parts of the job. You might think driving around and checking out new locations is super fun times, but truthfully it is something I don’t especially enjoy. I always bring my model in residence to check out locations so that I can take his photo as an example to show future clients a particular local. My three year old model isn’t always so cooperative during the session, thus my opinion on this activity. When location scouting goes well though, it’s awesome and I love it. So I have a love/hate relationship with location scouting because I hate doing it but I LOVE when I spy a new locale.

A recent location scouting trip in Carrollton.

Successful scouting trip to Ft. Worth!

More adventures!

IMAGE REVEALS

This is the fun part where I visit my clients after their session so they can view their full gallery of images for the first time! I get to do a show and tell of the different prints and products I offer and help families decide how they want to use their images in their own homes. I get giddy when families make their final selections because I love seeing my work printed and I love knowing their pictures aren’t going to die a digital death. I really love doing newborn session image reveals because I get to see the little munchkins again and usually they are already noticeably larger and more alert than during the newborn session. It is so cool to see how quickly and dramatically those newborn blobbies turn into babies.

Accordion books ordered during a recent image reveal. So cute I think I need to order a sample set for my studio.

MUSIC AND SNACKAGE

Picking out tunes on Spotify is a necessary and vital part of getting my proper editing groove on. My favorite playlist—“Now That’s What I Call Music” compilation. All the pop songs I grew up with in the 90s and early 2000s. Equally important to the tunes is my snackage. My favorite is Indulgent Trail mix (the one that’s basically 90% chocolate pieces and the remaining 10% is divided between raisins and nuts).

SHOOTING

The fun stuff! Me and my camera making it happen. Here’s a look at my gear, or you can check out my “What’s in My Camera Bag” for a better explanation of the goodies below.

H. Parker Photography specializes in newborn, baby and child photography in Trophy Club, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Dallas, Ft Worth and Roanoke.

Roanoke Photographer l Stitch Fix Box Two Review

July 23, 2015

I received my second Stitch Fix box the other day and wanted to share my latest review. If you haven’t heard of Stitch Fix yet, check out my original blog post.

I was pretty disappointed in this second box of clothing. The first box really surprised me in that most of the fashions were spot-in for my tastes and the clothes fit well. The second box was a flop.

I had a new stylist this time around and I really doubt I receive her again given that I had left negative reviews for all my pieces of clothing. I’m not blaming that poor stylist personally—we just clearly aren’t a good match and that’s okay. I’m cool with going through some trial and error as I find the perfect stylist, but the blow did hurt a bit more this time because my first experience with Stitch Fix was so amazing.

First off, I got a pair of Lillie Cuffed black denim shorts. These fit really well and were flattering. In retrospect, I should have kept them. If these shorts had been denim, white or pretty much any color besides black I would have purchased them. I just don’t wear a lot of black (like, at all). Unless I’m wearing a black dress or yoga pants you probably won’t see me in black. I just felt like I didn’t have anything appropriate to pair with these bottoms so I sent them back.

Next up was a Fun2Fun bind tie neck top. This is the one piece I kept from my box. I wasn’t crazy about it by any means, but it really makes sense to keep either 1 piece from the box or all the pieces, and I didn’t want my existing $20 investment to go to waste so I determined to buy at least one piece out of this shipment. That’s why the pink shirt made the cut. My sister convinced me that because it was light-weight yet still had ¾ sleeves I could wear it as a transition piece into the fall. I have now worn this top about 3 or 4 times and I am sad I kept it over the shorts. The keyhole opening at the neck is too large and when I bend down you can totally see down my shirt. This means I have to wear an undershirt which totally defeats the lightweight purposefulness of the shirt in the first place!

The Sam Hi-Lo short sleeve t-shirt wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. It was baggy (which I know is the style) but I feel like baggy things just make me look like I have no shape.

The Jamie button down cotton shirt in white was just a “what was the stylist thinking” moment of exasperation. I have explicitly said I don’t want things that are hard to clean (or dry clean) in my Stitch Fix profile. Granted, this shirt is machine washable, but it’s WHITE! What mom wears white on an everyday casual basis? Maybe girl moms, I don’t know. But there is no way I am paying $40+ for a plain white, button up blouse that I will destroy after one wearing. Major fail.

Lastly, the Norma Lace dress. I love the way this dress looked until I put it on. It just didn’t fit my body right. I felt it was built more for a junior as the waist hit in a really weird place. Besides, the dress was really overpriced compared to the quality. That’s the first piece of Stitch Fix clothing that I’ve felt like was of inferior quality at all. I also purchased a dress in June from Stitch Fix, so I really didn’t need another dress. I was kind of relieved that I hated it because I have a weakness for dresses and if it had fit I may have ended up buying it.

I’ll totally keep you posted on the next box, and if you feel inclined to try out Stitch Fix yourself, please use my referral link! Any questions, just give me a shout and I’m happy to share more of my experience: heather@hparkerphotography.com

PS- I don’t get paid or anything by Stitch Fix for writing this review, it’s just my true feelings that I felt like sharing with my readers.

H. Parker Photography specializes in newborn, baby and child photography in Trophy Club, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Dallas, Ft Worth and Roanoke.

Trophy Club Photographer l TasteBuds Kitchen

July 13, 2015

I had the best time visiting TasteBuds Kitchen Southlake last Friday. Their local storefront opened in Southlake a few months ago, and I was there to take some commercial photos of the space, as well as some of kiddos having fun in the kitchen.

If you don’t already know about TasteBuds, definitely go check out their website. They are all about fresh, unique cooking events and they call themselves a “kids’ kitchen by day and a BYOB adult kitchen by night.” They offer camps, parties and workshops for people of all ages. I was really impressed by the space and was especially intrigued by watching a group of children whip up some strawberry chocolate chip scones right before my very eyes.

So far I’ve only ventured into baking chocolate chip cookies with my own son at home, but I am totally psyched to try out some of their workshops in the future and see how my mini chef takes to it. I’m also going to gather some of my girlfriends for a ladies night out learning some nifty culinary skills like homemade pasta making!

Here’s a quick preview of my time at TasteBuds Kitchen!

H. Parker Photography specializes in newborn, baby and child photography in Trophy Club, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Dallas, Ft Worth and Roanoke.

Keller Newborn Photographer l Baby C

July 3, 2015

Baby C visited my residential studio in Roanoke, TX yesterday for his newborn photos! This guy was a few weeks early, so I expected a little peanut but he was all cheeks and squish–so adorable!

Mom requested a lot of ivory, grey and blues so I chose a pretty neutral color palette for Baby C which is honesty my favorite for boys. Plus, Mom brought along a gorgeous navy knit blanket that I was able to incorporate into a few images. It is always nice when parents bring something extra that speaks to their family and baby’s personality.

Baby C was a fabulous little one to work with–he was so sleepy and snug. I paid for it by getting peed on a few times, but I am totally cool with because this man slept through it all. Mom is also a labor & delivery nurse and she was really chill about the whole ‘having a newborn’ thing, which I think often reflects onto baby and helps keep the whole environment supportive, loving and calm. I couldn’t have asked for a better baby to spend my morning with yesterday, and I am loving going through his images.

Enjoy the sneak peek from Baby C’s newborn photo session!

H. Parker Photography specializes in newborn, baby and child photography in Trophy Club, Texas and surrounding areas including but not limited to Dallas, Ft Worth and Roanoke.