Quad Cities Family Photographer JFriedrichs Design | Graybill Family

Quad Cities Family Photographer JFriedrichs Design - The Graybills 2017

Since I have done essentially zero blogging over the last few years, or since I re-branded myself in 2017, it's time to just get going. Part of the reason I have been dragging my feet on blogging, is literally not knowing where to start. Having a slew of shoots, and travel, and events I'd love to have documented here, makes me second guess where to start. Soooooo...since we are quickly approaching Fall - I'm going to dive right in with this Fall family session from 2017. This was one of my all time favorite shoots. Why? Because it was so natural and captured exactly the type of moments I want to capture. Real. 

We had so much fun playing in the park! Because they traveled in from Cedar Rapids, we had to work with the timing of our schedules for that day, instead of a "perfect" sunrise or sunset lighting. And guess what?? We made it work!! 

Wrangling a 2-year-old boy to sit still in a park and pose for a camera is no small feat. And while having that traditionally perfect family photo with all faces pointed towards the camera looking happy and smiling is something some people shoot for, the natural moments where we capture a family looking like themselves is what really gets me going. 

We had so much fun walking through the park, finding worms, and even sliding down hills (oops)that when we finished the session, I asked Max if he had fun and his response was, "Dirt." Perfect. 

The truth is, I ended up with nearly 400 photos from this family session to cull through when it was all said and done. Yes, 400. Overkill? Maybe. But, honestly I couldn't stop. This Fall Family Session only took an hour, but because we spent that time moving and playing Max was happy and so were his Mom and Dad. 

Even after some serious culling, I believe I passed along a gallery of 246 edited photos from this family session. This kind of gallery came from an hour full of natural and candid moments between a family of 3 in the park, instead of an hour of frustration trying to get a 2-year-old to "cooperate" and sit still...look at the camera...SMILE! Ugh. I promise you, smiles from this fall family photo session were all real. 

I'm honored that this family keeps inviting me to follow them around and capture moments like Max finding his first worm!! I'm so excited to watch this family continue to grow!