What an incredibly gorgeous day! I hope you are getting a chance to enjoy it!

I want to thank everyone for another great year for Ashley Ward Photography:) I have loved working with all my clients this year and hope to see you all again soon. I will be wrapping up my last few appointments of the year soon and am currently accepting bookings for 2010. Next month I will be working on exciting new product offerings and samples and perhaps a couple of other surprises for 2010. I can’t wait to see where next year will take us:)

Thank you so much for visiting the blog and perhaps leaving a little love behind! I really appreciate the support and hope you have enjoyed looking around.

And here are just a few images of some of my favorite little ones, since no post is complete without images:)

And now for something completely different….

When working with families with small children, it pays to be flexible! After all, these precious little ones don’t really care about family photographs now (although one day they will be so thankful to you for dedicating some time to documenting their childhood!). They just want to have fun, to explore, to laugh, or to cry, or to take a nap, or to eat…..or whatever they are feeling at that particular moment. Sometimes a playful attitude is enough to coax them into the spirit of the session. But sometimes, no amount of play, pleading, or bribery will do. And sometimes the conditions just aren’t right for a session. Maybe it starts to rain – or rain is called for and everyone gets up earlier than normal to avoid the inclement weather and the child isn’t really in the mood. Sometimes, for whatever reason, you need a do-over!

There was just a little bit of everything that called for a do-over for this session. If you have been to my blog before, you may remember this beautiful (and soon to be bigger) family from last May and last November. They are so wonderful to work with and their daughter is just precious. She is just turning two years old now and it was so fun to spend time with her and actually be able to really communicate with her now! This is the second time I have been called to photograph them on their summer vacation. The day of the session, they were calling for thunderstorms and I was afraid we would miss our opportunity for images. So I called to see if we could arrange for a morning session. But it was too early for all of us and too late for nice soft light on the beach. Things just were not going as well as we had hoped. So we decided to let the little one nap and we would try later in the day. And thanks to Dad, we opted for something completely different and met for an afternoon of fun at Broadway at the Beach. And I think we were all so glad that we did! Not only did we get some fun, more modern, and colorful images that are completely different from last year’s session, but we had a wonderful time too! We also took a few belly shots this day since baby brother is due in about a month.

Mom and Dad, I hope you enjoy these images! Thank you so much for being so fabulous to work with and I really did have a wonderful time with you;)
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