Mobile phones and cameras that are on the market are getting better and better and make it so much easier to capture great images. You take zillions of photos of your kids on your phone (I know I do, my phone is full of photos of my kiddies). It is easy to grab as you always have it on you and many times you get really lovely photos with it. You can capture moments that will not happen again, make memories.

5 years ago, before my journey really began, I thought that I can get some really great photos of my little girl myself. So I set up a 'photo shoot' for her. I put a white towel on the bed, dressed her in a cute outfit and got our digital camera out. I LOVED the photos at the time. I loved them for a long time. Until a few days ago when I looked at them again. I pulled them up because I was trying to recreate that session with my youngest. I still have the outfit :D

This time round I put up my professional set up. The studio lights, the posing pod, the furry blanket. I got out my camera (my other baby), I checked my exposure, my white balance, made sure the studio light was in the correct place. Then I posed our little lady and took photos. I then spent about an hour editing the photos.

You can see the difference in the images below. This was shot by me 5 years ago in March.

These images were shot in March this year after all my training and with my equipment. I still love the photos I took of my daughter 5 years ago simply because she is in them but he images below are art, they are worth investing in. The kids grow up way too fast.

Same goes for outdoor photos. Yes of course you can get great photos on your phone and put a filter and all sorts of adjustments on.

I do try to get as close to what I want the image to look like in camera, but I usually do need to do post processing; and spend time editing the photos so that they look exactly how I wanted them to and they 'pop' :)

Plus the chances are, that I will have a LOT more patience with your little ones. It is a lot easier to take photos of someone else's children. They are likely to listen and take direction better and I like to think that I am pretty good at capturing their attention, sparking their imagination and getting them to smile by being silly :D The images below are of my own kids and believe me, it was not the easiest thing to get done :) I shot about 100 frames and have about 4 usable photos (I did add our newborn baby into the mix). I literally cannot wait for our family session I have booked with a photographer friend. I hope my kids will listen to him and we will get some lovely family photos to treasure and to put on our walls.

Below are a few examples of SOOC (straight out of camera) images and the finished image to show you the amount of work that goes into them after they have been taken.