Her daily agenda includes cooking and baking each day with the boys! They turn on some Pandora, open the sliding glass door for some fresh air, and spend the morning making some wonderfully-tasting puffy pancake or other family favorite! During this session, I photographed their morning routine as they do it! Watering the plants on the deck, having some quiet time reading books, wrestling and having an impromptu pillow fight, then capping off the morning with some made-from-scratch pancakes! As I stayed in the background capturing these shots, I was SO impressed with her older son’s ability (at not even 3!) to crack eggs into the bowl, and help her measure and pour ingredients! Then after a little mini dance session in the kitchen while the pastry took a quick run through the oven, it was tasting time! Sprinkling the sugar on was her younger son’s FAVORITE part, as evidenced by the large mouthful of sugar he got!

It is such a fun joy to be invited into my client’s and friend’s homes and capture these day-to-day routines and show the images to them in an emotional way! I have a couple more on the books that I can’t wait to photograph … if this is something you are interested in please let me know! brittney@brittneykluse.com

Cheers! -Brittney

One day, shortly after Brynna was born, it occurred to me that while I love the “pretty” photos of my family, the day-to-day photos of us just being “us” was just as appealing to me! In 30 years I’d like my own children to look back on photos of them as children and — at least in some — see me playing with them, instead of always being BEHIND the camera! I wanted them to see the bed-head, the messy room, the dishes in the sink. That’s how life around our house is!

I asked my bestie photog friend, Andrea Turner, to come to my house every couple months and just photograph us being us. She captures my vision so wonderfully, it’s hard to put into words. Photographing a photographer’s family is never an easy task, but Andrea has brought my vision to life probably better than I even could!

At the end of each session like this, I love looking back at the photos and seeing all of our zany, daily interactions captured in such an emotional way. Playing ‘this little piggy’ on my daughter’s toes, Braxton stealing sips of my latte, him laying in my bed watching a video on the iPhone. Cuddling my babies before naps, and the magic of mommy’s kisses to boo-boos from falling off the bed!

Perfectly imperfect is what I call these sessions. We don’t need an amazing outside back drop. Our bedroom is filled with fun and memories. I don’t need makeup or hair done. My kids love me with or without MAC. We don’t need our fancy outfits. Mismatched PJs, a onesie and baby legs, a nursing tank, some yoga pants (sadly, never used for yoga ) somehow seems like the perfect coordinated effect. Looking back on these photos, my kids won’t care that I hadn’t lost those 5lbs I wanted before photo shoot time. They won’t care that there is laundry piled in the corner of the room. They won’t care that the bed isn’t made. This was their life, and at least in a few shots, I was able to capture it in all its real, and natural beauty. Perfectly imperfect.

My advice to you is think about this with your own families. Are you waiting for your next hair cut, another 30 days at the gym, or next season’s “it” color before you get your family in front of the camera? Well, sometimes I am too! There’s a time and place for those photos. There are also a time and place to record your life — however crazy it is! — in it’s own beautiful glory! Whether this means hiring a professional to come to your house and capture you being you, or maybe you just set your trusty point and shoot on “timer” for a few fun shots. Just make sure that while you’re busy behind the camera (or iPhone!) trying to capture these memories for your kids, that you take the time to jump in too. Who really needs showers any way?!

Cheers! -Brittney

It’s officially been one year since I blogged. EEEEK. For a year I’ve toyed with the “to blog, or not to blog” concept. Maybe some of you can help affirm my decision to return to blogsphere. When I did blog, I loved it! It was a great way to tell the story behind the photos. It was a great way to connect with my audience and let them know what’s on my mind. For awhile, I really thought Facebook could be the end-all. But after a year of trial-and-error, I realized two things: 1) Facebook is not enough for what I want to do and 2) I was making it tooooo hard!

For anyone who has been in or is currently in the photography industry, you may know that each day you are inundated with new products, templates, gizmos, gadets and more that claim they will make your life simpler. But do they? NO! … at least not for me! I found myself investing so much time and money in purchasing them, learning how to use them, tweaking them, etc. all in the hope of simplifying my workflow. But what it created was a more cumbersome workflow … hence, my pulling the rip-cord on my old blog. Simply put – it.was.too.much.

But I lost my forum. I lost my connection. It wasn’t until a recent mentoring session I was doing, and the student told me, “I just fell in love with the way you wrote your blog!” …Ah hem. My blog? Really? You mean the one that existed over a year ago, and that was actually only kept up on a year prior to that?? It got me thinking … what and WHO else was I missing out on by not incorporating this into my workflow?

So, I made the decision, and the BLOG IS BACK, BABY! And guess what … I DON’T have to have it figured out 100%! So bear with me over the next few weeks as I catch up on some of my favorite sessions and put them up to share with you. Bear with me if the way the photos are displayed changes slightly. Bear with me if sometimes I have long, rambly posts (ummm, kinda like this one??).

I knew I had to get back to the basics. Part of my style is having a FRESH CLEAN and CONTEMPORARY style, so that needs to be reflected in the way I show you all my favorite images! Thanks to some super clean, and easy templates I’ve had in my arsenal since the beginning (thanks MCPActions!), I’ve made a few tweaks and I think I’m ready to roll. I may not have time to blog every session, but I’ve made it a priority for 2013 to get back on the blogwagon (ha ha … ok, pun intended.)

Here’s my goals:

• blog weekly

• include my FAVORITE photos … sometimes this will be 3, maybe at times 30!

• write about my FAVORITE part of the shoot.

Oh man, now I’m already getting new ideas. Isn’t this how I got into this pickle in the first place? Now I’m having an idea of a “weekly” blog. Each blog post shows a VARIETY of shots from sessions or photo shoots I had that week! Ok, ok…back to basics, right?!

Cheers!