Viewing entries tagged
Knoxville children's photographer
This family is so special to me, because they've been with me from the very beginning of my journey back when their oldest was in her mama's tummy. They were one of my very first clients. So to get to see them every year and watch them grow and see their love expand, well, it just feels like a gift to me.
There is absolutely no place like home. There is no place you're more comfortable and more yourself. I love to photograph clients at home and I loved hanging with this sweet family on a balmy East Tennessee summer night and getting to freeze a little slice of their special place for them. They instantly made me feel comfortable and at home. My favorite kind of people. <3 Enjoy.
This family. I knew this session was going to be amazing because of the way this mama talked about her family in my client questionnaire. I could feel her love for them through her words and her desire to remember this time with her sweet littles. Blessing to you Bailes family! Enjoy these sweet photos of your family
Happy New Years Eve everyone! This year has been such an incredible blessing to me and I am so very grateful to each and every one of my clients who have allowed me to photograph these beautiful connections with each other. I wanted to end this year on my blog with one of my favorite sessions of the year. I'm hoping to get more of these beautiful families from this past fall blogged here in the coming weeks. I can't wait to see this family again this spring when they welcome their new little bundle in April! Enjoy! And blessings to you and yours in 2017!
Whew! I am super behind on blogging this fall's sessions but I wanted to post this family's sweet session from September since we have his 6 month session next week! It is always such a blessing to spend time with this family. Happy 3 months little guy! Looking forward to seeing you again next week!
Wardrobe styling by Nicole Wise Styling
It is such a sweet honor to me to be invited into a family's home to photograph them as they've just welcomed in a new little one. It's an adjustment for everyone. Finding a new balance, a new rhythm, adjusting to little sleep, sharing mommy, sharing daddy. But my oh my, the beauty that lies within this precious and fleeting time. Inevitable growth and immeasurable grace. What a gift. Thank you Noll family for trusting me to capture these sweet moments for you. Blessings!
I am so excited to finally blog! I have so many gorgeous sessions from this fall to share with you and I'm going to start tonight with this beautiful family. They are as sweet as they come and I always love getting to spend time with this family.
Wardrobe styling by Nicole Wise Styling
I had the best time photographing this sweet family last month to kick off my fall season. Kristen is a photographer herself at Overbay Photography and when she contacted me she told me how she wanted to be fully present with her children at her session since she's always the one behind the camera. I can totally relate to that! I am so happy I got to document this sweet time with your lovely family Overbays! Enjoy these precious photos. <3
I hadn't seen this sweet family since mama was expecting this little one, so it was great to catch up with them and see how parenthood was going and see this sweet little thang. I think they're handling things pretty well don't you? <3
I have photographed this family for 3 years now and I always love catching up with them and spending the evening with them. We met up early this Spring and had such a great time picking flowers and running through fields. Enjoy sweet Whitt family!
"Some journeys are direct, some are heroic, some are fearful and muddled. But every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need." Parker Palmer
For years it has been a dream of mine to go to an in person photography workshop to learn from one of my favorite artists. After a few years in the business and my husbands sweet encouragement, I searched for the perfect one to meet my needs and landed on the Wildflowers Workshop led by the incredibly talented Joy Prouty. I have followed Joy's work for years and it has always resonated with me. Her ability to evoke deep emotion in her imagery is really incredible and I love her complete honesty and transparency in her personal work. I identified with her so much as a believer, mother and wife that I knew it would be a good fit. And it was. I went to this workshop really seeking insight on balance as a creative, a business owner and a mother and left challenged and stretched in all these areas. Although we had two shoots while there, this workshop wasn't very much about the technicalities of shooting but more focused on our artistry and developing that, which was exactly what I needed. I was challenged to shoot the things that make me feel alive as an artist. And although, I feel like over the past year or so I've begun to focus my work in that direction, my time at this workshop really breathed new life into this pursuit in my work.
My time with Joy made me look a bit more closely at what I love to shoot. What makes me love to pick up my camera and in turn create beautiful imagery. My photography journey has evolved quite a bit since I started my business 3 years ago. I have figured out that I am passionate about shooting families, but not always the perfectly posed traditional family portraits. Rather, I love to spend time with my clients, connecting with them, learning their stories, and photographing the season of their family, no matter what that may be. One of the things I wrote down in my journal that weekend that Joy said that I have gone over and over again to myself is that you cannot compare one persons beautiful with another person's beautiful. Sometimes life is not always golden sunlit fields and perfect smiles(sometimes it is!). Sometimes life is a sink full of dirty dishes and a tangled mess of hair and to me that is just as beautiful and equally deserving to be captured. So, as I embrace that, the joys and messes of these beautiful, imperfect lives we live, I hope you'll join me as my business grows and changes as I develop as an artist.
I am so thankful to Joy and the 16 other photographers I met for shaking up the creative in me. For encouraging me, challenging me, and giving me so many things to think about. Over a month later, I'm still mulling over all the things we discussed. I am really excited for all the wonderful things that are ahead for my work and for my clients. A few changes are already in the works and I'm excited to share them with you in the coming weeks. If you are a photographer considering Joy's workshop, DO IT. Just do it. If you aren't a photographer but love beautiful photographs, you should really follow her work. Here is her website. Go get a cup of coffee, a warm blanket to snuggle up to and enjoy. :)
Here are some pictures from my weekend in Austin....
And here are a few iPhone snaps of my weekend...
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Oh my stars. I hadn't seen little Ms. Piper since she was a bitty newborn and my goodness what a doll she is. Her mama and daddy were going on about what a sweet and precious baby she is and how she makes everyone around her smile and they were absolutely right. She lit up the room. So thankful to get to see this sweet family again. They've been with me since the very beginning and for that I am so so grateful. Enjoy these little snapshots of the love they share. <3
These are my people. My very best friend since we were 15 years old and formed a friendship at the local swimming pool when we were both singing U2's With or Without You, opera style at the top of our lungs. :) God has been so gracious to gift me with such a special friend like her. A lifelong friend. One that I've been able to walk along side through some hard times and the best of times. Last year they spent the year in Japan as a family and although I know it was an incredible experience for them and a time of growth as a family, we are SO glad they're back. I'm so glad we got to document the beauty of their little family recently. Love you guys so much! "Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other." Romans 12:9-10
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I can't say enough how much I have loved getting to know this family over the past couple of years. I first met them when we did a maternity session for their first son, then his birth and the rest is history. I've photographed them several times and I always love getting to spend time with them. I love seeing parents blossom into motherhood and fatherhood and as special as it is to see and spend time with a first time mom, I adore seeing a mother settle into motherhood with more than one child. It totally changes the dynamics of your family and stretches you in new ways. Your heart grows with even more love than you knew you had in you. It's amazing how that happens. <3 Enjoy this sweet newborn session with baby Luke and his crew. He is such a blessed little boy. Blessings to you guys and Congrats! This session was styled by Nicole Wise Styling.
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A couple of weeks ago I was honored to photograph this family's second birth. I am always amazed at the strength, determination and beauty of a woman as she brings her baby into this world and this day was no different. I have been so lucky to have been able to get to know this family over the past couple of years after I photographed the birth of their first son and it was just as much a privilege to spend the day documenting their second birth as it was the first. I am over the moon for this family, seeing them become a family of 4. Congratulations! I did things a little differently this time and put the slideshow video at the beginning of the post because I just loved the video clips and didn't want you to miss them. Then you can also scroll through the images. Enjoy this beautiful day!
https://vimeo.com/155462165
I am so excited to announce that on Saturday February 27, I am offering a very special mini session event for mamas and their children. This event will be held at The Hive near downtown Knoxville. The Hive is a beautiful indoor urban location that offers floods of natural light and a variety of cozy places for us to shoot you and your little ones cuddled up together. Seriously, it is so gorgeous in there and I am beyond excited to take my clients there!
I know that as a mother I am pretty much always the one taking our family photos and it’s difficult and rare for me to be in the frame with my children. So, that’s why I wanted to take a day out to focus on you mamas and the connections you share with your most precious treasures.
Nicole Wise Styling will also be on location offering hair and makeup services for $40. Please contact her at nicolemwise@me.com to book your appointment. Nicole will also be offering mini wardrobe styling packages for $50. Please contact her for more details.
The Details.... Sessions are $250+tax and payment is due in full to reserve your spot and is non-refundable. Sessions will last 25 minutes and will include 15 full resolution digital files delivered via download as well as an online gallery for professional print and product ordering. These sessions are suitable for all ages (including adults with your mothers, or expecting mothers) but are limited to one family per session with a maximum of 5 people.
Sessions are available at the following times.
9:00
9:30
10:00
10:30
11:00
11:30
12:00
12:30
Please email me at bethanysamsphotography@gmail.com to reserve your spot!
Before I share this beautiful newborn session with you today, I want to share my thoughts on why I love this session so much. I have ALWAYS been drawn to lifestyle newborn photography. Even from the very beginning of my business, it's really what I wanted for my newborn work. If you aren't sure what that is, to me, lifestyle is the art of capturing more honest, natural, emotive images. For the most part, that's always what I've done. And those are always the newborn sessions I love the most. Don't get me wrong. I have so much respect for newborn photographers that can pose a baby with props in all sorts of positions. It takes mad skills! But more and more, I just know that's not me. This is me. This session right here. Just hanging out with this family for a few hours. Watching them interact and capturing all those sweet details. These are the sessions that make me excited. It's exactly the way I want to capture families. This family is so incredibly special to me because they were sweet enough to take a chance on me in the very beginning. Before I even officially had a business, they were one of my first portfolio building clients. I am so thankful for them for trusting me again to capture their family during such a special time in their lives. I can honestly say, I always have the very best time hanging out with them. These two little ones are very blessed to be in such a sweet and loving family. Congrats Levenson family!
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I was so excited to photograph this sweet family again. I photographed them about 2 years ago and absolutely loved meeting them and spending time with them. I knew I was going to love this session because when mom contacted me she wanted me to get some outdoor family photos and to get some of them in their home just documenting their everyday. Which is one of my favorite things to do! Enjoy this sweet session of this beautiful family. 
