Michele Schanker Photography » Lifestyle Photojournalistic Photography

Want to do some family photos during the winter months? Think you have to wait til spring cause its cold out? Not true…just think out of the box.

Here are a few ideas to toss around:

1. the inside of  a mall – choose an early morning time before the mall is packed

2. maybe your family likes to go ice skating – lets go to the local rink and follow up with some hot cocoa

3. Brave the elements and go play in the snow. A family snowball fight can make for great photos.

4. Do a home photoshoot. This is a great time to get some shots of kids and babies in their rooms. Maybe even break the rules and let the kids jump on the bed. Think of  a family activity that you like and let me shoot you in action. This could be family game night. Lets get out your favorite game and I’ll catch the action and candid expressions.

Hope that helps get the ideas flowing.

Meet Breck!!!!

He is the newest addition to our life! As you probably know, I love to ski. My husband and I really love the town of Breckenridge, so when we got a boy dog the first name that popped into my head was “Breck”. We found this cute and adorable 1 year old lab at the Boulder Humane Society! His name at the shelter was Sampson. Dave really, liked that name. I kinda liked it to, but felt that we should give him our own name. So it was decided that his name should be Breck Sampson Schanker.

In April, Dave and I decided to take a Friday off and travel to Breckenridge for a long weekend with Breck. We found a pet friendly condo, skied for a few days, and spent our evenings walking Breck on Main Street. Of course the trip would not be complete without Breck’s First Photoshoot!

We moved into our house in mid November, and with all the boxes I was wondering if we would get to do Christmas cards this year. Finally about 1 week prior to Christmas we got it done! (yeah a little late sharing this, huh) This is a tradition with my husband and I. We do self portraits for our Christmas card. Its great because it gives us great photos every year that we can put up in our home. I wasn’t quite sure what to do this year. I knew I wanted different…unique…something using furniture outside! I bought these leather chairs recently and got the idea of putting them in a field. I was going tp scour all over the area for the perfect field, but my husband says “what about the one right as your leave the neighborhood”. I took a look….and thought “that will work”. So in 30 degree weather we put the chair in the car and drove the 1/4 mile to the field. I have to say I think this years Christmas card was the best so far! Here’s a few shots we got of ourselves.

Enjoy this slideshow from Caitlin and Pieter’s photo session in the hills of Tehachapi, CA.

More from Caitlin and Pieters photo session in Tehachapi, CA. This was such an awesome shoot…I had a hard time choosing what to share.