Brand New C {Fredericksburg, Virginia Newborn Photographer}

Meet Baby C, 7 days new and so cute! I had a great time photographing Mary and David's Maternity session and was super excited that I got to photograph their newborn baby boy.  Baby C came a few weeks earlier than we thought he would.  He did such a great job and we got some really cute ones, just take a look! I had a hard time picking just a few to show. Enjoy!!

Aubree {Virginia's Eastern Shore Family Photographer}

I love it when clients come back to have their family portraits done.  I photographed little A a while back with her mom and aunt and now I got to photograph A with both her parents!  A has grown since the last time and I am excited to capture these for her family.  Thanks again L for allowing me to photograph your beautiful daughter and you family!

Mary Maternity {Fredericksburg, Virginia Photographer}

I love doing sessions for friends, especially friends from college. Mary and I met at Longwood University. We were both in Sigma Alpha Iota together.  When i found out that Mary was expecting I was really happy for her and David than she asked me to photograph her maternity pictures, I was super excited. We had so much fun and I had such a hard time picking out favs for this blog.  I'm a little late posting this because Baby C decided to make his entrance into this beautiful world a few weeks early! {Keep a look out for his blog coming soon}

Enjoy!!

ALL IMAGES ARE © JACKIE RANSON PHOTOGRAPHY- DO NOT COPY!

These last two sections are pretty much my favorite grouping.. so much love for this baby already and for each other~

How to take Great Snap Shots of Everyday Life {Virginia Children's Photographer}

I realized that I haven't blogged about my newest addition in a few months.  My baby girl turned 3 months on May 21st. I can't believe she is already three months!! I hate how fast she is growing right before my eyes.

Im so lucky to be able to capture her growing up myself {as well as my two other girls}.  And you can too! You shouldn't let the phrase- "Well you have a nice camera, so you can take those kind of pictures" stop you.  Just because you might not own the best equipment out there (heck my Nikon D90 isn't the highest quality camera) you can still capture your children growing up without having to go out and find a professional photographer {AKA me :)} to capture everyday life. Even though its nice to HAVE professional pictures of your WHOLE family, those daily pictures still need to be captured, even just by you.  And I will tell you how you can do it :)

This mini 3 month session of my youngest was a quick and painless one.  What i did:
* First off make sure your "setup" is de-cluttered you don't want that dirty diaper or brightly colored paper in the picture and distract the subject. I laid down a pink blanket for my daughter to lay on (something that will match your child outfit works best) and then i laid down my boppy for her head to rest on. (this is optional of course- and i took it out in a few pictures you will see below),

* You want to be beside or by a window because natural light is the best light there is.  I opened my blinds to let that light in the room. 

* Lay the child down ontop of the blanket and/or boppy looking down on that child or looking on the side.  You DON'T want to look up the child nose- definitely not very appealing, even for a beautiful baby.  Do different angles from the side and from up top.

* After the picture is finished on your camera, upload them to your computer.  Now this is the part where I know not everyone has Photoshop- thats okay! I didn't do much to these pictures because well, they are just snap shots!

* Open whatever program you have {if you can afford photoshop- i would recommend photoshop elements 9 or 10. Its a decent program for just adjusting your pictures and its not that expensive! If you can't afford that at all, there is this free program online called PhotoScape.  USE that and that free one only. You can do alot of nice things in there to your picture including adjusting your color, brightness, etc.

* First thing i did was sharpen my image and the next thing i did? I ran an action~ Keri Myers Action called A Little Retro.. Thats it!  If you don't have actions, don't worry, just adjust your colors by what you think looks good. DON'T over edit! Over editing makes the picture turn bad too well BAD.  so keep it simple :)

Now here are some of the pictures i did with my scarlett~

starting to talk :)

AHH i love her so!

So why did I tell you all that? Well I use to be just like you! I thought I wouldn't ever be able to just take snap shots that looked good so I didn't take them and I missed out on some great memories growing up.  I then started reading up on how and by learning from other photographers, i realized it wasn't too bad :) So even if you just came to look at my beautiful daughter :) I hope you took away something from this post and I hope to see more "snap shots" going around :)  Thanks for stopping by!!

Wanna Win A FREE Beach Session? {Virginia Portrait Photographer}

So you wanna win a FREE beach session?! This will be an awesome way to get updated photos of you, your kids and/or your family!

HOW TO WIN: You have TWO chances to win~

To Enter, you MUST do the following: {This is mandatory to enter}

** LIKE, Jackie Ranson Photography on facebook.

** Share my page in your status update saying "I wanna Win A Beach Session With Jackie Ranson Photography" making sure you tag my page.

** Come back to my fan page and type Done and Shared on my wall.

{Second entry is Optional}

** Follow my blog {Jackie Ranson Photography- Blog}

** Come back and comment below saying you are following and who you would bring with you to the session if you win.

I will randomly pick a winner on June 8th, 2012.

Session will take place on ONE of the days the mini beach sessions are taking place (depending on your location)

Winner will receive the Session AND one Mounted 8x10 print for free {A $140 value} as well as a 10% discount on additional prints.

** IF you are the winner and you get TWO of your friends to book a beach session, you AND your friends will also receive 3 digital negatives (on cd) of the Session {Another $150 value}  Totaling your winnings at almost $300!

So what are you waiting for??? Start sharing!