How often have you had, or do you plan on getting, pro pics of your LOs? I'm talking a regular photographer and/or something like Sears.
I mentioned getting pics done of C at 6 months, but heck we still don't have prints of the 3 month ones and it's only another 2 months away. I want to budget out what I'd plan on spending this year. Also, we do not have a fancy camera and probably won't for quite some time.
Re: Prof pic - how often?
KelleyA did Rena's newborn, 6 month, one year, and 18 month/holiday pics. And we've gone to Picture People/Portrait Innovations a few times (Valentines pics, etc).
I wasn't planning to get her 2 year pics done since we spent a lot on her party. But my sister's friend is starting her own business and offered to do them for very cheap...so we're doing 2 year pics in a couple weeks. After this I'll probably do holiday and yearly bday pics with a photographer and do Picture People, etc a couple times a year.
We did newborns and plan on doing 6 month, 1 year and 18 month for sure. We will likely do some holiday ones this year too if we get around to it.
If you did 3 month pics I'd wait till 9 months and then do a 1 year maybe?
You can always borrow a fancy camera too - I don't mind meeting you to let you use ours. Fair warning, having a fancy camera doesn't mean your pictures are better...I still suck at taking pictures but DH does real well with it. You can tell which pictures I took and which he did (on FB and my blog)
We had a package of 4 within the first year (could have included mat. pics, but I already had him when we bought). We chose
Newborn (ended up being 5 weeks)
6 months (I felt like at 3 months, he still wasn't doing much more than what the newborn shots were - it ended up being at 7 months, and he was at least sitting on his own at that time).
9 months (ended up being 10 months - which was good b/c he didn't start really getting on his hands and knees until 10 months - so there were some good "crawling" poses).
12 months (still haven't had time to schedule them, and he is 13 months! - do you notice a pattern, here?? I was going to try to wait until he was at least standing on his own, but he hasn't even begun to try, yet, so I may just have to forgo that "stage" of pics since it's past the year mark)
Looking back on the pics, I think they are all adorable in their own way, but if I had to cut one out, I would have skipped the 9 month and just did newborn, 6 month, 12 month.
Also, I can't remember what you are doing for childcare, but a lot of daycares take yearly pictures (they have someone come in and do them, then you can buy a package). I like it b/c it's cheaper and less time consuming for me (personally, I don't think they come out as cute, though b/c they aren't working for the smile and cute poses).
for both my kiddos i've done newborn, 3mo, 6mo, 9mo and 12mo. after that for my DD, i've done holiday and birthday and we just did bluebonnet for them both. but my hubby and i are real picture people. these are things that we value and will hold onto.
i've used the same photographer each time, www.bellababiesphotography.com. the owner/photographer is kristi and she's so nice.
BFP with no treatment!
I'm horrible and Kaitlyn only had 1 "professional" picture done (at Sears lol) and Sam has had none, cept the ones from the hospital. We take SO MANY pictures of them, that I just don't think to do it. Not to mention the time it takes. Micaela... I did them at least once a year until she was 5. Sad right? It's just so hard with three of them! Kaitlyn has had several pictures made at MDO though, so I do have some that aren't just candid shots and I was actually really impressed with the MDO ones. They came out so cute!
We did make an appointment to have a family picture made, but the weather didn't cooperate. lol
Ummm...never? lol I always planned on doing prof pics but we never have. We take pics all the times but we do have a semi fancy camera we bought when ds was 5 months old and the quality in the pictures are way better than our old camera, even though this one is still a "point and shoot".
I am planning on doing 2 year old pictures in July to finally get some prof done...but we will see if that happens in July or not! lol
We were lucky that some friends are very talented amateur photographers, so one person took pics around two weeks and another around three months. After that, we didn't do anything professional until 16 months. I have a digital SLR, and while our pictures aren't pro quality, we do get some amazing ones now and then.
If I had to do it all over again and went with pro pics every time, I guess I wouldn't so much worry about age and would go with milestones...newborn, sitting up, crawling, walking, etc.
For E, 3, 6, 12mo, at a picture place (Sears at the beginning, then we switched to Portrait Innovations). She had a real photographer take pics at 16mo (grandma paid for those).
And then I planned to do them at 2yr, but we ran a little late so it was more like 2.5 and included some maternity pics for me too.
DS we took at 3mo and hopefully will do it for 6 and 12mo as well.
I've been pretty happy with Portrait Innovations. They're not as artistic as the real photographer pics we got, but they are pretty good with kids and we got some cute pics. Also, if you can limit yourself to just 6 poses, it's just over $100 and you get all of them on CD too, so we spend a LOT less than we did at Sears and you get the prints in under an hour (we go get lunch and then just pick them up afterwards).
We had them done at 6 months (in part to use for Christmas cards) and have a session scheduled for 1 year. My mom thinks I'm over the top with just that. ::shrug::
Amber
TTC since March '06
MFI, LPD, possible PCOS
3 chem pgs * m/c identical twins at 9w 10.06
IVF w/ICSI #2 - beta - 187! (9dp5dt), beta - 367! (11dp5dt)
IVF w/ICSI #3 - it's a girl!
My IF Blog: Between the Lines
My Parenting Blog: Letters From Your Mama
I wanted to start with 3 months, but we were late so we ended up doing 4 months/Christmas, 7 months/Easter, 12 months and 18months. After that we did a 2 year and will likely just do prof pics around his birthday every year.
With Reagan I did 3, 6, 9, 12. For 3-9 I just went to Picture People/StudioOne etc. For 12 we used an actual photographer. We jsut so happened to capture her at 18 month at Picture people for Christmas cards and then we had pro pics at 2.
Abby's been a bit screwed. I hoped to get some pics of her at 3 months during Reagan's 2 year pics but she was cranky and slept most of the time. We did have 6 month pics which are my fav. I totally forgot about 9mos and then had pro pics at 12mos.
Interestingly some of my fav pics of the girls were their 6mos and at different places.
Crazy Christmas Kids!