I was so excited recently to get an email from a client I haven't seen in a while who excitedly let me know that he and his wife just welcomed not one, but TWO, sweet babies into the world! He asked if I had any opening to photograph them and I immediately said "yes, yes!" vowing to find the time to meet these sweet babies.

Not only was I thrilled for him and his sweet family, but as a baby photographer I jump at the chance to photograph multiples as there is just something so sweet and special about them.

Of course, getting two babies to cooperate at the same time can be challenging and these two were just old enough to be a bit curious and awake for much of the shoot. What was sweet though is that I discovered that if I put them next to each other so that their bodies were touching they would become calm and settle down (well, most of the time anyway).

Look at this sweet black and white photograph of the two of them cuddled together. I love how their little faces look like they fit together and the contentedness of these sweet twins just to be sleeping close to each other is... well..touching.

We worked in the client's home where the babies could be nursed, rocked, swaddled and kept calm. The natural light coming through a large wall of windows provided just the right soft look to compliment the luminous characteristic of newborn skin.

Look at all those piggies! Getting this photograph of the twins' toes was perhaps the most difficult shot of the day. We did this one at the end when they were beginning to stir a bit more and getting those little tootsies to hold still was a challenge.

Just look at this happy family! I have some wonderful shots of big sister that I will share in my next post.

Thank you to this wonderful family for letting me into your home and allowing me to do meet these sweet new babies. I had a fantastic time doing your baby portraits and family portraits and I look forward to watching all these beautiful children grow!

With all of the social networking websites out nowadays we all have such great opportunities to reach out to old friends and reconnect with people we have not seen or talked with in years. Depending on how one uses these sites, the obsession with these forums such as Facebook and Twitter can become a negative drain on our time or can be a positive, relationship-building tool used to enrich our lives and businesses!

Today I am a portrait photographer living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. But I am orginally from Massachusetts. I moved away when I was barely 20 to "find myself" and in the process I left behind lots of great friends. Well, as we all were busy with college, graduate school, marriages, babies, etc., I lost touch with most of my high school friends, save for those with whom I was closest.

I went to one class reunion and reconnected with a few but even email was not enough of a "convenient forum" to sustain contact with the large group of friends I have that live far away and again contact was lost. However, after my sister and a few friends badgered me into it, I finally joined Facebook. Once I established my profile and started posting, my old friends were "knocking on my wall", sending friend requests, status updates and commenting on my posts and I now have my old friends back -- at least virtually.

Like most people who first join such sites, I was amazed and a little concerned at what a time-suck Facebook could be and I wondered if all of this newfound contact was good or wehther it could become a problem. The answer to that I guess is: depends on how you use it. I have found that Facebook has been a great resource to me -- not only for social satisfaction from the comfort of my living room but for promoting my business as well.

Through Facebook, I was able to reconnect with lots of my friends in Scituate so when I was up there visiting this summer I let them know where I would be and we got together. It was great to see them again and so interesting to see how everyone was still the same for the most part (and with this group, that's a good thing!).

What was even more interesting was to meet their children and see your old friends in the faces of their kids.

I was asked by a few of my rediscovered friends to photograph their children and families and let me tell you how cool that was. This mother of this gorgeous family was a friend of mine in junior high and high school but I had not seen her since our graduation -- until this summer.

My friend let me photograph her family on the beach and we had fun climbing the rocks, laughing about old times and reconnecting. I enjoyed seeing her kids and was impressed at how cooperative they were as I did child portrait photography for them with a journalistic style that captured the personalities of these beautiful children. She is obviously a great Mom!

Her son was so cute and excited to be photographed on the beach. What made it really neat though was that we were doing beach portraits on the same beach where his mother and I used to hang out as teenagers over 20 years ago!

So, I want to thank Facebook for making this rediscovered friendship possible. This Atlanta family photographer is able to, much more easily than before, reach out to old friends across the country and do child portrait photography and family photography on the beach to give to an old friends photographs that she will cherish forever.

Thanks to my friend for letting me do this for you! It really was great to see you and meet your beautiful family.

Obviously, as shown in my previous posts, I photographed lots of families and did quite a bit of photography of little children on the beaches of Scituate, Massachusetts this summer. I was also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do some senior portraits for some very beautiful and interesting young adults while I was there.

This gorgeous teenager was a senior portrait photographer's dream come true. Her long, lithe figure and million dollar smile captivated my camera from the first shot I took -- and that one was just to test the lighting!

Not only was she beautiful, she was also very personable and smart and had some great ideas of what she wanted and where to go for great late afternoon light.

She wanted photos that reflected her personality and the places she loves. So, I picked her up on a beautiful summer evening and we headed straight to the "Spit" where she assured me the light would be "just right."

Turns out she was absolutely correct -- the light was amazing as the sun began to dip over the marsh and threw a beautiful soft golden glow over third cliff and Rivermoor Beach.

For those of you who are from Scituate, you can see from these photos that we were able to walk out to the beach, as we did not have a boat. You also know that means that the tide had to be just right -- in other words, not high. For those of you who do not know the area, the Spit is a "spit" of sand jutting out from scenic third cliff. It is a favorite of Scituate people, both young and old because of it's beauty, wildlife, serenity and, for teenagers, it's seclusion from the rest of the world when the tide is high.

Unless you have a boat, the only way to get out to the Spit is to walk on a pathway (shown here) from Third Cliff. But the first part of the path is a wooden walkway that, at high tide, is covered by water making it difficult, if not impossible, to access the Spit by foot.

When we headed out, the tide was fairly high but not up all the way. We shot for a while and then started heading back only to find that the walkway we had just come down was quickly disappearing under the tide waters.

The tide was still coming in and we laughed as we realized that we had wrapped up shooting on the beach just in time -- only a few minutes more and we would have had to either wade through water to get out or sit for several hours while we waited for the tide to begin receding again.

As you can see by these photographs though, it was well worth risking getting caught at high tide. The light was incredible and the natural appeal of this scenic location provided the perfect backdrop to compliment this young lady's beauty.

Another good hang-out spot for Scituate kids is the beach and jetty at Scituate lighthouse. So, we hopped in the car and headed to the other side of the harbor to incorporate this historic location in some of her shots.

She was the perfect model and an ideal client. We had an amazing shoot and the whole thing only took an hour and a half. I got so many great shots that I had a hard time deciding which ones to showcase here. I picked out some of my favorites, but we got so many more that she could create her very own personal yearbook!

A large piece of driftwood had washed ashore at the lighthouse and provided a great perch for these sunset shots.

Sitting on the walkway to the Spit before the tide got too high.

While I love all of the shots that showcase the fabulous beauty of the locations we visited, I think that this is probably my favorite photograph of this high school senior. It shows her soulful eyes and her personality comes through in the appealing crookedness of her smile. As a senior portrait photographer and also as an artist who loves the town of Scituate Massachusetts, I enjoyed this shoot so very much . I feel honored that she and her family trusted me to do these important senior portraits for her. Thank you!

As I continue to showcase the work I did this summer in the beautiful coastal town of Scituate, Massachusetts, I am reminded of why I do this job. I look back at the happy faces of the families I met and recall how much fun I had with the wonderful people in New England. This couple, for example, was amazing. These two were so patient and did not complain despite the fact that the sun was extremely hot and bright on the evening of their shoot and, in an attempt to find some shade, I led them to a rocky area that was covered with seaweed.

Not only was the smell of the drying seaweed almost unbearable, but I completely forgot that piles of dried seaweed attract bugs galore! At my urging, they happily complied with my request to pose quickly on these rocks despite the smell. I started shooting, assuring them that we would work quickly in this area. After a few seconds, the Dad got this disgusted look on his face and said simply, "wow, the bugs are really bad over here." I looked down and realized that my khaki pants were now black due to the hundreds of little gnats and flies covering my legs. Resisting the urge to scream and do a crazy dance, I laughed and suggested we move to another location ASAP!

They laughed, too and assured me that they didn't mind and would sit wherever they needed to in order to get the good light. I wanted to hug them for being so easy-going. I assured them that I could get some fun, life-style shots in the bright sun and urged them to just head onto the wide open beach and play with their beautiful baby girl. I simply followed them around while they interacted and captured these great photojournalistic-style family portraits that capture the playfulness of this family better than any posed shot ever could.

No bugs on this smiling baby girl!

Big kisses from Dad rounded out the evening. I thanked them for being such great clients and smiled as I walked down the beach, sure that we obtained some fantastic shots and grateful that they didn't run screaming after the bug-fiasco!

The beautiful town of Scituate, Massachusetts sure attracts some beautiful people! Just look at this gorgeous family I photographed while up North this summer. They were so cute, so blonde, so smiley and a ton of fun.

This little girl was very excited to be at the beach where she could run and play in the sand and surf . Getting her to be still enough to take a photo that wasn't blurry turned out to be quite a challenge! She was simply adorable and could not contain her excitement over being on the beach in the evening. She definitely kept me running - but, as an experienced child portrait photographer, I just kicked off my flip flops and had a blast chasing her up and down the beach.

It was probably a good thing that her little brother couldn't yet walk and could be easily contained in his daddy's or mom's arms - otherwise I might just have passed out from pure exhaustion!

I'm kidding about that (sort of) and hope that next year, when little brother CAN walk, I will be lucky enough to have to chase them both down the beach, through the sand and even right into the surf! When you are a family photographer doing beach portraits in coastal towns such as Scituate and Cohasset, you have to learn to love the sand between your toes and have to be willing to get a little wet to get the fun shots.

Even the parents love the beach, as shown here by the beautiful full smile of this pretty mom.

As the sun set over the marsh behind us, the light falling on the beach and the rocks was simply amazing. We had to work a bit fast to capture the majical light before the sun sank below the marsh grass but with a little cooperation and big smiles like these being offered up, I knew before ever downloading the photos that the shoot had been a success.

Thank you to this family for such a fun time. It means a lot to me to be trusted to capture these moments. I hope you love your disc with all of your photos and I certainly hope I will see you again next year!