Yet another exciting collaboration with Sweet Indulgence and Flowers By Semia! We’re honored that such talented ladies thought of us to shoot this gorgeous table they created for Valentine’s Day. Who gets to shoot the best flowers and sweets in Rhode Island in a perfect snow-dusted apple orchard for their job? I hope the photos show how dreamy it was to be there. I even got to sample a red velvet brownie when I left, which was just as dreamy as the set!

Flowers: Flowers by Semia  (their facebook page!)

Sweets: Sweet Indulgence (their sweet facebook page)

<3 Mariah

December has come and gone, but we have one more deal to share with you for 2013!  This deal is available for ONE WEEK ONLY.  After one week, the deal, and the opportunity, expires! If you’re a newsletter subscriber, you’re already in the know about the entire series. To hear about future promotions, sign up for our newsletter here.

This week’s deal (expires 5pm EST, January 15th, 2013): Book a Maternity session for January-March of 2013, and receive 20% off your session fee!

A maternity session is the perfect way to create stunning, heirloom portraits for your family to remember your pregnancy. We love to get older siblings involved in sessions, and husbands, too! To see more maternity photos (from almost a year ago, when Heidi was pregnant with Grace!) click here!

How do I take advantage of this deal??

Call the studio (401-864-1919) this week to schedule and submit your session fee for a maternity session. Please note we are here to answer your calls Monday through Friday 9-5pm.  Calls during non business hours will be returned in the order received.  Session fee must be submitted before 5pm EST, December 21st, 2012.

~ The Heidi Hope Team

“Do you think I’ve gone round the bend?”

“I’m afraid so. You’re mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

It never seems to happen like I plan.  The idea for this shoot started out as something completely different.  I found the skirt last year at a time when Giuliana was obsessed with ballet and princesses.  I could picture the joy on her face when she got the chance to twirl around in it.  I thought it would be amazing for Grace’s newborn portraits.  I envisioned Giuliana finding her new baby sister swaddled in a basket, deep in the woods.  That shoot never happened.  It turned out to be much too lofty a goal for a sleep deprived new mother.

The summer came quickly and I had a new vision for the skirt.  I could see Giuliana running down the beach at sunset, the tulle of her skirt skimming the shallow water, stomping in tide pools, twirling in sunflare.  That never happened either.  Then autumn approached and I pictured Giuliana as a woodland fairy gathering fallen leaves and picking apples.  You guessed it… never happened.

And so, the skirt collected dust atop a pile of props in our studio basement.  Every time anyone tried to pull a prop, the skirt fell down and consumed them in a maze of tulle.   Everyone began asking me, “Are you ever going to use that skirt?”

I was.  But when?

I had started thinking that perhaps I would wait for a snowy day and finally get the pictures of Giuliana in the skirt before she outgrew it.  I was waiting for the perfect winter day.  I needed fresh snow cover, but warm enough temperatures that my kids wouldn’t freeze or be miserable.

Coincidentally, this past Friday I started looking around for a favorite photograph I took of Giuliana in the snow a few years ago and found that the original is gone.  All I have is the watermarked version from Flickr.  Do you remember this one?

Still grieving the loss of my favorite snow photo, on Saturday morning I saw the forecast for the weekend and decided I would FINALLY use that skirt for once and for all!  While I was at it, I would recreate my old favorite portrait and include Grace in it as well.

Contrary to popular belief, Giuliana does not like modeling for me and no amount of bribery will change her mind.  When I tell her we are going to take pictures she gives me a giant “aaaawwwwwww  I don’t want to!” and proceeds to hide behind the nearest large object while sucking her finger.  She’s a typical four year old, only probably worse because she’s had a camera in her face her whole life and she’s a pretty shy kid.  I actually showed her the “Princess Skirt” that I bought thinking it would be her dress-up dream-come-true and she immediately whined, “Mom, I’m not wearing that!  It’s silly.  It’s too big.  I don’t want to do pictures.”
Given her aversion to having her picture taken, whenever I do a photo shoot with her, I have to turn it into something fun so she forgets she’s having her picture taken.  As I hurriedly shopped and plundered the studio for the shoot, the idea for a scavenger hunt came together.

Giuliana ended up having a ball running through the woods, trying to sound out the words scribbled on tiny slips of paper and finding each of the treasures I had hidden for her amidst the snow.  Sweet Indulgence was the icing on the cake, giving us some sweet little confections to scatter throughout our set.  G has never met a jellybean she doesn’t like!  We even brought Grace out at the very end for a quick snap to pull off the infamous bunny tea party, version 2.0.

It all came together even better than I could have planned.  Sometimes, things just happen that way.  Here is my Alice, in her winter wonderland.

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

We’re so excited to be bringing back our December Deals! Every week from now until the new year we’ll be offering a special deal for a Heidi Hope Photography session.  Each deal is available for ONE WEEK ONLY.  After one week, the deal, and the opportunity, expires! If you’re a newsletter subscriber, you’re already in the know about the entire series. To hear about future promotions, sign up for our newsletter here.

This week’s deal (expires 5pm EST, December 21st, 2012): Book a Senior Portrait session for the Spring of 2013 (before May 31st), and receive 32 free wallets of your favorite pose, plus a free yearbook photo!

We’re already thinking Spring for senior portrait sessions, and want to make sure we have sessions free for the class of 2013 and 2014! This deal is perfect for seniors who want to remember their last highschool years with more than just a studio yearbook portrait. We personally make every shoot unique, and provide stylists for professional hair, makeup, and wardrobe styling throughout your session. This Spring, show off your magazine-quality shoot with free wallets and a yearbook photo!

How do I take advantage of this deal??

Call the studio (401-864-1919) this week to schedule and submit your session fee for a senior portrait session. Please note we are here to answer your calls Monday through Friday 9-5pm.  Calls during non business hours will be returned in the order received.  Session fee must be submitted before 5pm EST, December 21st, 2012.

Please visit our SENIOR PORTRAIT WEBSITE to learn more about Heidi Hope Photography sessions!

~ The Heidi Hope Team

It has been a long time since I have had the time and opportunity to travel on location to a client’s home for some lifestyle portraits.  When sweet baby T was born early and had a long stay in the hospital, we rescheduled the B family session out to the Holidays.  I think traveling to the B family’s home (and being so warmly welcomed by them <3 ) really helped me to capture them as a family and all of the love they have for their baby girl.  I am totally in love with this session!  Watching mom and dad cuddle her and make her smile melted me.  It reminded me of why I love what I do so much.  I left thinking “I wish I could do this for every family!”  In 2013 I will be traveling much more and hopefully doing more sessions like this one.  Thanks B family for being so much fun to spend the afternoon with.  T is so gorgeous, I already can’t wait for our next session!  Enjoy your sneak peek!  ~ Heidi

I was waiting to lose the rest of the baby weight.  I was waiting for Shaun to be able to take an afternoon off.  I was waiting for the perfect time of day when the kids wouldn’t be cranky.  I was waiting to score the perfect outfits or to dream up the perfect concept.  I was waiting to have enough time in my schedule to do it all…

Then I looked at Grace, her two bottom teeth sprouting out of her gums, and realized it is all passing me by too quickly.  First days of school and leaving for prom flashed in my hormonal mind!  I don’t want my girls to grow up!

Of course I have no control over that, but what I can do is put everything else aside and make my family portraits a priority!  So I did.

We began our journey of incorporating video portraits into our studio offerings last year with our newborn sessions (see a sample here!).  We loved the finished product: “A Birth Story” (check it out here!) so much that we decided to offer video portraits to all of our Heidi Hope Clients.  Now, you can add on a video component to any Heidi Hope Session.  Information about our video portraits is sent with your welcome package when you book your session, but give us a call to learn more about it!

Mariah and Joe were happy to use my fam as a sample so you can all get an idea of how our Video Portraits work.  You can see the gorgeous photography from our session by visiting Mariah’s blog post here!

Was I afraid to jump in front of a camera… no liquifying or airbrushing…. for the whole world to see?  HECK YEAH!  But, I can’t possibly express how much the resulting movie and portraits mean to me.  I don’t even see what I was worried about.  I see my beautiful, happy, blessed family, being exactly who we are in this perfect little moment of our lives.  The messy hair, chapped lips, extra tummy… they all take on a significance I didn’t even know I appreciated until now.  I am so thankful we did this.  And I am so thankful to Mariah and Joe who captured it all so beautifully for us.

So, without further ado, here is a sneak peek of our family video portraits!

Video Portaits from Heidi Hope Photography on Vimeo.

I still cry every time I watch this… I can only imagine what prom night will be like!  ~ Heidi

Who would have known that this location was our Plan B?    We had another location all planned out, but as luck would have it, the whole team pulled up just in time to be told that it was closed for maintenance for the afternoon! Of course, we weren’t going to just cancel the shoot- Heidi’s family was styled, and we had our videographer, Joe Maggiolo, in tow, to capture the whole shoot on film.

So, we packed up the team and drove just down the road to a little field we had seen driving in. Plan B became Plan Awesome as we realized that the field was even better for Fall portraits. The color, the grass, the light- everything just came together for an awesome backdrop. I couldn’t love the results more! (Phew!)

Why did we have a videographer? We recently announced “A Birth Story”, our newborn sessions captured on film by Joe Maggiolo. We’re expanding our video portrait product to encompass all types of sessions- even outdoor family sessions! Your family is captured interacting on film throughout our photoshoot, and the footage edited as a professional movie set to music. We wanted to show just how stunning the result is, so we invited Joe along to capture Heidi’s family creating memories! We can’t wait to show you the video. In the meantime, there are a few behind-the-scenes shots sprinkled into the family shots below to give you an idea of how we work with Joe.

Ready for an epic Fall family post? Here we go!

~ Mariah

This cutie came to us a few months ago for portraits in the studio, and here he is again at the farm! He’s definitely grown a lot since we last saw him- he’s sitting up now, and has the cutest little baby curls. He loved when I ran over and tickled him, so I got quite the workout at this session- sprinting back and forth to get him to laugh.

Mom had some great outfits picked out for him, too. I love this first shot in the sleigh with the snowglobe!

~ Mariah

Three sisters, all in Matilda Jane! Their outfits perfectly matched the colorful, rustic background of the farm setting we photographed at. D is 6, C is 3, and E 16 months old. We did a fair amount of chasing E- she was on the move and FAST, as you can see in the middle shots of her with D (who is wearing a Heidi Hope Signature Blossom Band)!

All three were sweethearts, and I love how the whole session came out. Fun, full of personality, and colorful!

I can’t wait to show you the entire gallery, S! ~ Mariah

The sweetest sisters ever came down from MA to have their holiday shoot with us at the farm. E was a little shy at first, but once she saw her big sister A posing for the camera in our tent, she jumped right in! The connection that they have is just awesome- they were snuggling and laughing with each other on their own. 

What made them laugh like that for the second photo? All I had to do was ask them to look at each other, and they cracked up!    Sweet Indulgence made the gingerbread cookies in the last photo especially for our Holiday shoots. The girls loved them!

Thanks for making the drive down, B family! ~ Mariah