All the details about mini-sessions are located under the “Info” tab of my website!

If you usually do fall mini-sessions, this is a great chance to get a different look (and also free up some time during the fall), or – why not do both? 

I’ll be taking sign-ups over email, and if you would like to be notified over email, please use the “Contact” form on this website, or send an email to me at jennifer@jkriggsphoto.com .  Please DO NOT depend on leaving a comment on this post – unfortunately, I don’t get notified of the comments and I usually don’t see t hem until it’s too late.

And whether you’re interested in a spring session or not – I hope this Atlanta weather clears up and that we can all enjoy some outdoor time soon!  (We’re gonna need before summer hits.)

That means that cooler weather and my busiest time of year are just around the corner.
I’m working on my schedule for the remainder of the year and will be taking bookings for mini-sessions VERY soon.  Once I have the mini-session information ready to go, I’m usually booked completely full for the rest of the year.  So, if you are interested in a full session, get in touch with me asap!  Full sessions get first priority, so I’m setting those dates before my mini-session dates.
If you are interested in a fall mini-session, and you have not received an email from me already, also get in touch with me asap.    You can reach me through the “Contact” submission form on this site.

I’m excited to see old client-friends and new ones, and see how much those kiddos have grown!  I’ll be all around the Atlanta area, and hope to see you at one of my stops soon.

I’m having to keep mini-sessions to a very small number this year due to a scarcity of available days, so I expect for these to book quickly.  However, I still have a couple of spots for full sessions in May, and plenty of openings this summer!
If you’d like more information about full sessions (see “Info” for a start), or to get email notifications about future mini-sessions, please use the “Contact” form rather than leave a comment on the post as I don’t always see comments notifications and I’d hate to miss you!

I know the weather has been all over the place so far this March!  I’m not waiting until May for that reason (it’s more of a busy April coincidence), but I hope we will have settled into some more predictable mild (and less rainy) days by then.  In the meantime, get out those rainboots and enjoy the puddles (maybe I need a puddle-jumping/mud-sliding session in here sometime soon…??)!

So long, 2017.  You were interesting.
As always, I’m so appreciative of all my clients each year!  Here’s a little collage I assembled to look back – one image for each session of the year.
Comparing this to 2016 – I had almost the exact same number of sessions (four more this year than last), but, I had a better distribution – took that 2/3 of all sessions in the fall last year to just over half in the fall! Not exactly even, but an improvement for my sanity nevertheless. 

Thanks to all of you for being a part of my year!! As a show of appreciation, I’m going to be giving away a mini-session to start off 2018. I’ll announce details today on my Facebook page as well as on Instagram, so head over to those pages for details!
And… HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

It’s September!  I can’t believe it.

I spent the long weekend visiting my brother and sister-in-law in their new hometown in upstate New York.  We had beautiful fall weather, and hiked, ate icecream, took a glass-blowing class (this is what you do in Corning!) and visited more than one brewery on one of the Fingerlakes.

And now that I’m back home in Atlanta, I’m trying to keep in the fall mindset by straightening out my upcoming schedule.

I still have a couple of openings for full sessions this fall, so please contact me soon to book!
Additionally, I’m offering fall mini-sessions throughout the metro Atlanta area, and more detailed information on that can be found under the “About” in my menu above.  Booking for those will be released very soon, so please contact me if you’re not on my mailing list to let me know if you’re interested in a mini-session.

Hope to see you in some golden light soon!

Did anyone spend time outside this morning? It felt AMAZING!
As in, it did NOT feel like summer. And on top of that – I spotted my first fall leaves yesterday!

This means that fall is coming, and I’ll be doing mini-session signups soon. I have a few things to finalize this week with scheduling/scouting, and then I’ll start early sign-ups next week (just like last year, full-session clients from the past year will get first choice), and then I’ll send out an email to everyone else shortly thereafter.

So if you aren’t on my mailing list (if you didn’t get an email from me about spring mini-sessions, and would like to get this one), send an email to: jennifer@jkriggsphoto.com
and let me know you’re interested in fall minis.

If you’re interested in a full session this year, contact me soon! Spaces go so fast during the fall, and I want to see as many people as possible, but eventually I always run out of days.

Thanks!!

Mini-sessions are great for getting a handful of shots to use for your holiday card or newsletter, but a full session gives us time to get both more posed shots – with all the combinations of people – and to play around with candid shots, too. Not to mention to move around and find different spots at our choice of location, without feeling rushed.

This family had so much fun together, and it showed. And I had so much fun with them! I got big hugs from these girls when it was over, and I left remembering why I like this job so much!

I had this post prepared before the weather turned cold again – for more of the “cool spring” than the “cold spring”, but I’m going to trust that we’ll get there again soon…!

About two autumns ago, I wrote a post about choosing what to wear for sessions. I was helping my sister choose clothes for fall family pictures, and the post was a bit of stream-of-consciousness about my thought process in going through that.   (You can see that post here.)
So I thought I’d do that again, but this time during the spring, a little less structured (because this was a last minute idea with just the kids), and not a planned ahead family session.  The mission was to keep the children warm enough, while still looking like spring-time, and this is how it happened:
Last week I had the urge to get out of town and find some pretty spots outside of the city!  The air was warm, trees were blooming, and my nieces and nephew live about an hour outside of Atlanta, with lots of rural space between us.  My sister (very, very graciously) agreed to get them up early and dressed Saturday morning to meet me at spot of trees I was hunting.  The plan was to take some pictures of just the kids – both parents had other plans for the day anyway, so I would spend some quality aunt time in the process and bring them home when we were done.

Well… all those pretty trees I had been seeing made me think these trees might be almost finished blooming. But it turned out they hadn’t even started yet.  Bare, winter trees.  And a 3-year-old running wild.  Rather than force him to slow down for any posed pictures, I just let them play and we walked around, then we went to the town square and had brunch and walked around some more.  So, a couple of snapshots of each is all I have to show you – but I think it will do well enough to talk about layering in the spring!

I have several early morning sessions coming up, and it’s good to remember that in the spring we may look at the forecast and see a high of 70, but it may still be COLD in the morning!  Small children do not like being cold – they shiver, they’re uncomfortable, they’re not happy.  Some of them cry.  And I want your pictures to reflect some happy times together!  (I mean, I love real moments, and I will take pictures of some tears – but I don’t want them *all* to be that way.)
Everyone in my family tends to be pretty warm-natured – we don’t mind the cold as much as some.  But still, I wanted to to make sure the kids had some layers on they could use if they wanted to.  And this, my friends, is what I thought about to get them ready for these pictures:

First, I told my sister not to shop – they can wear what they have.  It doesn’t have to be fancy – “Just don’t let Lilly wear that t-shirt with chihuahua in the beret.  Wear something simple. Don’t try to match the 3 kids together – just look for colors that work well together.”

Sounds easy enough, right??  (It got a little more complicated than I had intended….)
–   For her tween – Mom selected a navy cold-shoulder top that she wanted her to wear (Tween wasn’t sure about the style, but she did it.)
–  For her 5-year-old – Mom sent me a picture of a coral top that was one of her little girl’s favorites.  Long sleeves, not too cold.
– For her 3-year-old – Mom says, “I don’t have anything for the spring for him.”  And I offer to take a quick lunch break and pick up a shirt.

The other thing she old me was that she only had jeans for them all to wear – all dark jeans.  Which is ok… but I’d rather have at least one of them in something different, so that when they’re sitting together their legs aren’t a mass of navy.  I’m also thinking the same thing about her oldest – navy on top and bottom with no color to break it up.   So Mom sends me a picture of a cardigan the tween can wear – it’s in the same bright coral that the 5-year-old will be wearing.

And now my head starts churning with more complications, because one of my rules is to steer clear of fluorescents – they cast color onto faces.  And the coral wasn’t fluorescent, but it was close to it, and I’d rather have such a bright color as an accent color than have it on 2/3 of the upper bodies in the image.

So my solutions are:
1) White jeans for the tween – this will break up all the navy and add more of a spring touch
2) Find a layering combination for the 3-year-old boy.  I found a white and blue light flannel button down.  I paired it with a long sleeved green t-shirt to wear underneath – leave the shirt unbuttoned and roll up the sleeves together to get peeks of green.

3) While I’m picking up clothes for the boy, I see something for the 5-year-old and pinks and pastels that looks so – her.  So picked that up, too.  The top was sleeveless, so I found a denim jacket (they are in stock at both Old Navy and Target right now.)

I didn’t know if the new clothes would fit the 5-year-old, but the good thing about what the boy is wearing above is that it would have worked with both the coral or pink.  I chose this and another option (that he ended up wearing) over plaids with pink for this reason.

Sooo, a little more shopping than I had intended!  But it was Old Navy and Carters/OshKosh and that was it.  It was very helpful that these kids have a Mimi who loves to shop.  My mom  braved the juniors department and got the white jeans and a neutral jacket for the tween. (Because, to make it more complicated again – if the 5-year-old ends up in pink I wasn’t sure the coral sweater would be the best choice for the tween.  It’s harder doing this remotely and not seeing all the clothes in person!)

And so (if you’ve stayed with me this long), each child had something to wear that was warm enough for a morning in the 50’s, but that still looked like spring-time and not winter, AND that could be delayered as the day started getting warmer (and they ran around more).
So you see, it can be done!  Spring doesn’t have to be sundresses – pair the dress with a denim jacket, a sweater, leggings – anything to be prepared for the cool mornings!  And give your little guys a second layer – it’s not only practical, layers photograph well, too.

Here’s a look at each kid with all their layers on as well as a layer down. The goal was for it to work either way, and they did.
(Well, I don’t have one with the youngest in his shirtsleeves – just shirt showing vs. not as much.  We had to button up his sweater because it kept falling off and he didn’t like that.  Ideally, I’d get clothes that fit well – size down if we have to.  But this was last minute and there wasn’t more time.  Some of the clothes were a little big, but for what we were doing, I wasn’t too worried about it.)

There you go!  That’s my behind the scenes planning for this year – I hope it helps!

I won’t have as many of these little sessions as I hold during the fall, but I also won’t have enough space during the fall for everyone who wants a photographs at that time of year, so spring is a great alternative!
If you’re interested in a spring mini-session and haven’t already received an email from me, use the “Contact” option on in the menu bar to ask to be added to my email list.

Locations will be in-town Atlanta as well as around the metro area.

If you’re interested in a full session this spring, dates are filling up!  Get in touch soon (through the “Contact” form) if you’d like to book.

In the meantime, I’m not sorry to see a little cooler weather this week.  Might be my final chance to wear my cozier clothes, yet still leave the windows open for a little while longer.