12 month portraits

Last Sunday we scheduled an appointment to take Sadie's 12 month portraits at JC Penney. We've done all her previous portraits there and she's been surprisingly good each time. We don't try overly hard, we don't get greedy. We get in, get 2 or 3 good smiles, and get out. We're probably the only people who actually are done in the time they allow for our appointment. Last Sunday was different. Sadie was inconsolable. We hit unnecessary traffic on the way there...you know, the kind where the freeway goes down to one lane only for about half a mile then opens up again and there is no sign of road work happening anywhere. And by the time we got there Sadie was a mess, and she wouldn't calm down either.

The girl was nice, but I did have to coach her a little. They are used to normal babies, babies who smile on cue and you can take a picture. Not my baby. We had to break out the big guns...blanket swinging. We told the girl, as soon as we put Sadie down just start snapping. It's okay if she's not smiling, chances are you'll get a good one anyway. Plus she has like 25 frames or something, we were not going to use near that many. We did this twice, got 3 or 4 we were happy with, and moved on. Here are my favorites:

Big girl, right? So, as I was picking out the ones we wanted to actually buy, Sadie fell asleep, of course. Then she was all smiles as we were leaving the store and didn't cry a peep on the way home. That's my girl!

So, this morning we tried something different. Through a connection, I learned that a lady named Joanne is trying to promote her photography here in Arizona so she is doing free shoots in return for good publicity. I like deals like this. She came over today and took some more pictures of Sadie. And Sadie wasn't much more cooperative for her. Luckily, Sadie is so pretty it doesn't matter. I'm her mom, I have to say that, right? But it's true.

You can see some of the pictures Joanne took on her blog here: Amiciphotoblog
(if you're viewing this post later, you can search for Sadie's blog post, it's called "just special...")

I can't really tell you which experience was better since they were both pretty horrific. However, I am more please with what Joanne was able to produce. Maybe it was the setting, maybe it was her maturity, probably it was her ability to capture the real Sadie instead of trying to pose her in a studio. I don't know, but I do wish I could afford to take pictures this way for all her milestones. Maybe as we grow as a family, we'll call Joanne again.