Why hire a professional? Episode 3! – Sacramento, CA Photographer

This will be my 3rd installment of, “Why Hire a Professional” by Amy Schuff! Or maybe it’s just, “Why hire Amy Schuff?” Can I be that bold? Well I’m going to be for the moment. You have so many options about who to hire for your family photography and I hope that I’m one of your options. I have to warn you though, I’m a little nerdy, a little off-the-wall. I’ll play in the dirt with your children, but always make sure I bring a fresh pair of super clean socks to wear at my newborn sessions (cause I kick off my shoes for those!!) I have been a mom through all of the little kid stages and I’m in the trenches of teenagehood. So do you want someone who can commiserate about your 2 year old? I’m raising my hand over here. You want someone who can identify with your labor and delivery? Me. You want someone who understands what it feels like to love another person so deeply that you might explode but also you might want to tear their heads off? Yeah, that never happens to me, you’re on your own (hahahahaha!)

But you know what though? I don’t have any experience with YOUR story. Your story is so beautifully unique.

Your story is complicated and messy and lovely and amazing and so perfectly yours.

This is what I’m getting at. I can identify with your place in life, but the closest I can get to identifying your specifics is through photos. Before our session, I try to figure out as much about you as possible (through emails, phone calls and questionnaires) but even at that, I only get to see a small part of you.

It’s my desire that the photos we take together will display the true love your family has for each other. The love might be stolen glances while you wrangle toddlers. It might be big sloppy wet lip kisses from a baby who has no idea how to kiss they just know they want your face…near their mouth…and nothing will stop them. It might be a moment under a tree with your crew that doesn’t even all fit on the blanket together anymore. How did those kids get to be so big? How come his arms suddenly feel more like his father’s arms than his little brothers?

I know the thoughts running through your head mama. I know them, because I have them too.

My heart aches for my children, to freeze time, but also to be so excited about the years to come that I don’t really WANT to freeze time.

I know what it is like to look across the couch at a man who you have spent the better half of your life with and wonder how we got to be so blessed? Maybe your love is new, maybe it is wise and aged. The fact is, it is perfectly yours.  Life is meant to be cherished, celebrated and captured.

Do you agree?

And did I get so distracted that I forgot to post my Before & After?! I did! Here you go…

I knew when I shot this photo I wanted it to look much, much brighter and deeper than my camera could capture. This is why being a professional in what I do comes in handy, my camera does not make me a photographer. My camera can only do so much, it is just a piece of equipment. I use it to its fullest potential and then I create the art that swirls inside my head!

This was from a very recent session. You can see another image from this session on my Client Instagram and also in the near future right here on the blog!

(And to those who know what this means, my settings were ISO 320, 2.5f, 1/200 taken with a Nikon d750 24mm lens.)

Vision and After Edits:

A little girl in red in field of flowers sun beaming down on her sacramento ca photography

SOOC / Before Edits:

A Before Photo by Amy Schuff

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Photography for Oklahoma's Families