Alice is one of five women in their family all bearing the same lovely name.  They’d had a photo taken when she was a little girl, but now wanted another to include her daughter, Ali.

I had never done a generational session before, so, naturally, I scoured Pinterest (not much on there), and said, “What do YOU envision?”  Ha!  Way to put it on the client, right?  Alice came up with some lovely ideas, and great coordinating outfits too.  Her sweet grandmother, Mumzie (I think I’m spelling that right),  was even chauffeured down from New Jersey for the occasion!

It was a joy meeting them all, and laughing, walking & freezing together.  Thank you ladies.  I cherished this session so much I may force my grandmother in to one as well!

Enjoy!

We HAD to get Ali’s little sister Charlotte in on some of the fun.  She’s a bundle of excitement!!!

I, myyself, like too many other mothers, am usually the one stuck behind the camera.  Well, why not give Mom the gift of a custom portrait session this Mother’s Day?  Force her to get dolled up, play with her children, and create some memories.  She won’t regret it & you’ll be in her good graces for LIFE!

Check out some of these lovely mommies….

Contact me for your Mother’s Day gift certificate special rate!  mandysroka@gmail.com

I am super duper excited to be able to now offer something MORE to my digital clients!  You & I both know the value of digital images – you get to keep them forever, they belong to YOU, & you can use them in any personal manner you wish.  Well, since we both know the high cost & value of digital images, I am proud to offer to my digital clients a complimentary digital iPad album!

Just like the graphic above states, when you purchase your digital images, I will make them in to digital album for you to have on your iPad!  It’s quite simple, and huge thanks go out to Ariana Falerni at Becoming Mom for the amazing tutorial!

Now you are more than welcome to create one yourself, but I thought I might save you the time & thank you for making such a great investment in your images & in my business.

There are no special apps needed to view your album besides the iBooks App or the Kindle App – both free.  (I prefer the Kindle one).  Once you purchase your digitals from me, simply ask, I’ll whip an album up for you, & email you the link to download it.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

I want you to start this blog by looking at the following two photos.  First is Brooke….

And next is Emma…

They are two of the three most important people in my life.  And you can see they are both mimicking what they see me do a LOT – take photos.  So I want you to know that I write this blog post with them in mind.  The fact that I have two little people watching my every move, makes me more conscious about what I say & do.  And what I say, do, post, share, etc on social media is like leaving them a permanent record of who I am & what I stood for.  That is where I begin.

Recently, a little Twitter war was brought to my attention.  From what I gathered, the gist was that a person in my same profession knowingly took another professional’s work, used it as their own, all while being under the umbrella of a follower of Christ.  *ouch*  Being a Christian is a hard enough undertaking all on its own.  Add to that being in a very public profession, AND add to that sinning in a very public way, and you will rile all kinds of feathers!  Without knowing the full details of this situation, I can say that what occurred was wrong, was unlawful, was sinful.  Apologies need to be made – both private & public.

Here comes the but….

However, the reaction I have seen to this publicly sinning professional are what saddens me the most.  It eerily reminds me of Jesus’s own people yelling, “Crucify him!”  In no way do I compare this person to the blameless person of Jesus Christ – just our response to that of the Christians who called for Christ’s crucifixion.  It is easy to call for someone’s public humiliation when they publicly sin against another.  But is that our right?  Is that how Christ calls us to respond?  Do we forget the own log in our eye?

Too many times I see MY fellow professionals use social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) as platforms to blast other professionals for mistakes they make, sins they commit, and thoughtless things they say.  My husband always chastises me when I “read” in to his text messages.  He says, “It’s just a text.  How can you tell my tone of voice in type?”  Along the same thread, how do we know what is behind someone’s tweets, status updates, instagram pics, and so on?  Instead I see us – photographers – jumping to the worst in people & publicly slamming them.  Where are the days of tact?  The days of gracefully contacting someone privately & voicing your concerns to them without an audience of your one thousand followers?  What I see my friends, is a flurry of bullying via social media.

Am I blameless?  Heck no!  I am the first to say I have (and do) use my online updates to be: passive aggressive, to make others jealous, to feel better about myself, to toot my own horn….to sin.  But lately, this Twitterstorm has made me re-evaluate my words.  If I were someone other than me, and I looked through my 11k (that’s right, eleven thousand) tweets, what would I think of me?  What do they say about me?  Let’s remember the cutting effect of our words.  They have more power than we can ever know.

James 3 (NIV)

⁵ Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. ⁶ The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. ⁷ All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and sea creatures are being tamed and have been tamed by mankind, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

So there we were, the eight of us, and about a million other people who decided to take advantage of the weather.  This family was awesome!  They put up with me trekking them through the woods, through the sand, and the wonderful dads even held up a towel for me so I could get some beach shots of the boys.  Thanks guys!  Enjoy your preview & I can’t wait to see your dad’s reaction to such a thoughtful gift.

Enjoy!

Normally, I don’t really direct my sessions so much, but with Delaney, I wanted to try a few ideas I had running around in my mind: tea party, bubbles, rain boots & umbrella, balloons, pinwheel, flowers, etc.  I had so many ideas spinning that I was giddy!  Delaney was amazing & let me try out as many as I could in our time together.

Here are a few peeks from her session.  Enjoy!

So, I looked back through my most recent photo sessions of my girls & chose 4 photos from each of their yearly sessions – two of Emma, two of Brooke.  With the help of Ariana Falerni’s Photographer’s Wall Display Guide & the amazing work of Pixel2Canvas, I was finally able to make this vision come true!

Here’s the Wall display guide template I came up with for their photos:

*note, my living room is NOT this amazing….thanks Ariana for giving us all design inspiration!

This is what I had on the wall previously.  And while I loved it, because it was my kids, it was a little outdated & my girls had grown so much.  Plus, anyone can hang two canvases side-by-side…I wanted to do a little more.

Here’s the finished project on the wall….

Up next, our family photos from Meghan Lynne Photography!  I’ve already laid out the design & got the prints – now to find frames I like!

I LOVED getting my baby fix with this sweetheart of a girl.  Thank you, Mom & Dad, so much for letting me capture this special moment in your lives.  Enjoy your newest little angel…

Tony & I headed to Downtown Annapolis for his senior photos.  It’s one of my favorite spots to shoot because it offers so much variety in such a small area.  You really can’t go wrong choosing Annapolis as your backdrop.

Thank you, Tony, for putting up with me for two hours, and thank you for giving me your best.  I’m KNOW you’ve given your mom a valuable gift in these photos!

I was overjoyed to work with Hope & Josh on some ideas they had come up with for their maternity session.  We texted, we pinned to Pinterest, we scoured Google, and also just winged it.  This is a little sneak peek of their session.  Congratulations Hope & Josh – I cannot wait to meet your newest little man this spring.  I’m off to pin “newborn + siblings” ideas on Pinterest now!

Had to let this handsome little guy join in…he was too cute to not be in front of the camera!