This sweet girl is a longtime Devon Shanor Photography client, and I LOVED getting to celebrate her 9th birthday with her! She was also one of the first kids I photographed in my BRAND NEW photography studio — which made this session even more fun. (Don’t worry we are still in Virginia Beach, just moved to 527 N Great Neck Rd, Virginia Beach!)
And NINE deserves to be celebrated! It’s the last year of single digits, and this session was all about capturing exactly who she is right now.No stiff poses. No trying to make her look older than she is. No forcing her into some picture-perfect version of childhood.
The goal was simple: come into the studio, have fun, and just be HER. And that is exactly what we did.
A Birthday Photoshoot Full of Personality
One of my favorite things about birthday photoshoots for kids is that there really are no rules. They don’t have to follow a theme or fit into a certain mold. A birthday portrait session can be colorful, simple, silly, classic, funky — or a little bit of everything.For her ninth birthday session, she brought three different looks, and I love how every one of them showed off another little piece of her personality.
We played with everything from a simple white studio setup to colorful backgrounds, brick walls, flowers and more relaxed portraits. She gave me beautiful smiles, BIG laughs, little smirks and plenty of that wonderfully goofy personality that makes her HER.
And THAT is exactly what I want from a children’s portrait session.
I want the scrunched-up-nose laugh.
The little smirk.
The confidence.
The silliness.
The expressions you recognize immediately because you’ve seen them a thousand times at home. Those are the portraits that become priceless — and probably the ones you’ll cherish even MORE when those angsty teenage years arrive!
