Our annual Fall Mini Portrait Sessions will be taking place again this year with limited morning sessions on two days only! We are offering 20 minute sessions booked on the half hour on Saturday, September 16th and Saturday October 21st only. Sessions will begin at 7am with the last one starting at 11am. The session price is $175.00 and it includes 8 high resolution digital images from the photoshoot. Addtional digital images, prints and holiday cards will also be available to purchase in addition to the included digitals. You may also purchase all of the photos from the session after you view them for $250.00. This year both sessions will be taking place at Majestic View Nature Center – 7030 Garrison St, Arvada, CO 80004. We will be meeting in the parking lot right next to the center (not at the park entrance off 72nd Ave.) The center has restrooms available and some great photo opportunities near by! This is our one and only time a year that we offer short sessions at a discounted rate. The dates, timing and location are all set by our company for this special!
If you have never participated in a mini session before I want to share a little bit about the concept. Mini sessions were developed to give clients with stricter budgets a quick photo-shoot with their family in order to accommodate a large amount of groups in one day! This session is perfect for families with children with short attention spans looking to just capture the growth of their family for holiday cards and the like. These sessions are not intended for groups that may need a bit more time and care with their photos such as large extended family shoots, families with pets or families looking to pick and choose their location and willing to spend more time getting lots of different poses, looks and or clothing changes. A grandparent or two can also tag along with one immediate family, but grandparents with multiple children that have families of their own may need to look at purchasing at least two back to back session spots. We also will not allow pets to be included in these sessions because while we love pets, the sessions are just too short for us to have the time devoted to both getting the the attention of the animals and their family members. These sessions are also more suited for people that can be on time or early. We run a tight ship on mini session day and since sessions are booked back to back photos will start immediately at your contracted start time and end 20 minutes later. Late comers will only get the time-frame we have allowed for them, so once their time is up we’ll be done and moving on to the next group. All sessions are paid for in full to reserve your time-slot with no refunds unless we have a really bad weather day and have to reschedule. In cases like a bad weather day we will reach out to each family to see if there’s a day we can reschedule the session for and if there isn’t a mutually agreeable day within the next 2 months we will refund your money.
Check out some sample photos from last year’s session at Crown Hill Park –
Each session will include a couple different full family poses, separate groupings such as individual parents with children, children alone, parents alone and individual shots with a few different background options. Majestic View offers a lot of options in a close proximity while we won’t be moving around the entire park in a 20 minute session some walking will be needed. If anyone has any disabilities or needs special accommodations please let us know.
One thing we can not guarantee is how much the trees will have changed or the weather! I try to set these sessions around the peak of the fall foliage season with weekend dates that we still have open, but it always varies from year to year. This year we only have a couple Saturday mornings open because we are fully booked with event coverage on the weekends until November. I cross my fingers for a beautiful day with abundant color and leaves still on the trees! Be aware that nature is going to do what nature does and we’re just at it’s mercy! If the forecast calls for cloudy and overcast, but not torrential downpours we will still be doing photos! So please dress accordingly.
Our mini sessions can also be used for a special occasion, not just for a family portrait. We’ve had people utilize our mini sessions for quick engagement pics, maternity announcements, a 50th wedding anniversary, headshots and more! We’ve even accommodated a quick senior portrait session for a student that hated having his photo taken and was doing just the bare minimum photo in one outfit for a yearbook photo and some pictures for his parents. We will be happy to let you utilize your 20 minutes for any quick small portrait session you may need. If you are needing something other than traditional family photos please let us know when you reach out for booking so we can make sure to focus on what’s important in your photoshoot.
If you are interested in booking a time for one of these sessions please email us – info@crystalinephoto.com
Please include your family’s name, contact numbers for any adult participating, names and ages of everyone and date and preferred time slot. Please include two times in case we book your first choice. All bookings are first come first serve are not guaranteed until a contract and full payment has been received. If you have a larger family and are not sure if you will need extra time or not please give us some details and we’ll let you know if we think you will need two time slots.
Back to photographing one of my favorite family’s newest addition, their fourth son, Shane. Who knew that a decade ago I’d still be photographing the Hickman children for their one year milestones! I run a special package that captures the first year of baby’s life starting with newborn photos in the first month after baby’s arrival. We then meet up again every three months finishing with the one year birthday celebration and cake smash for baby. Darcy and Ryan have been through these sessions with each of their children! And now with us being on our fourth child not only are the other kids old pros at having their photograph taken, but we’re now struggling just a little bit to come up with locations for outdoor photo-shoots! I still find love capturing this family and can’t believe we’ve been taking photos for as long as we have! Enjoy some baby squishes! It goes by in a blink of an eye!
Nothing is more precious than newborn babies! And I especially love getting to photography past wedding clients when they venture into parenthood. Jerod & Erin were married just last year so they wasted no time in starting their family. This adorable little peanut was a little over the newborn stage at about two months when we photographed her making it a little more difficult to get those adorable sleeping baby photos, but we tried our best! She’s a cutie pie even when she’s wide awake and I love, love, love the matching mommy and me outfits!
In case you didn’t know we have moved into a full on studio space in Arvada this Summer. After 20 years of hauling my backdrops, lights, props and more to people’s homes it was time to finally settle down at a location that would make it easier for me to photograph my clients. This allows me to set-up before the subjects arrive, have access to all of my backdrops and props at a moments notice and just make the whole experience easier for everyone. We are sharing a space with another vendor: Amazing Weddings & Ceremonies, who provide wedding ceremony and officiating services as well as their own ministry. So far it has been a great working partnership! I will still be doing a lot of location photo-shoots, but this also gives me the opportunity to have an indoor back-up plan, offer more affordable studio sessions for things like headshots, newborns and more!
Thanks again to Erin, Jerod and Miss Willow for being my first clients in the studio and looking forward to many more years to come photographing your growing family!
Here’s an in home newborn session I did before Thanksgiving…. this sweet little guy took a while to fall asleep for us… Sometimes come with the territory…. We tried just about everything, extra feedings, white noise, swaddling and even a car ride! Yes, dad took him for a ride around the block! Which was a first for me, typically all of my little tricks work to make baby sleepy, but this time around he was making us work for it. But I think it was worth it in the end what an adorable little guy! Congrats again to the Radcliffe family on your new addition!
I’ve been working on so many weddings the last couple months that I’m a little behind with posting other photography sessions. Since this couple from the engagement/family portrait session I photographed at the end of July are getting married this weekend at Willow Ridge Manor; I thought I better post it! I had such a blast creating these images for this family, so much so that I’m really looking forward to covering their wedding! A lot of couples today enter into marriage already having children, so it just makes sense to include them in some of the engagement photos! Adalynn is such a cutie! Who wouldn’t want her in the photos! Lots of love to you both and we’ll see you this weekend!
Don’t you just love Spring? And Spring babies are the best! Fresh and new to the world and super adorable! This young man has three older siblings to help him on his way. I’m so excited to share images from Cole’s newborn portrait shoot! What a cutie! 
Summertime is my favorite time of year to do family portraits! And we were lucky enough to have Cole’s 9 Month Milestone photo-shoot come up in August this year to take advantage of the warm days! I think this was out best session yet with all of the boys! Kids are always having more fun when they can run around a bit in between poses and backdrops. Little Cole is getting so big already! I can’t wait to do his final session in November to celebrate his one year birthday! Enjoy the photos!
Spring has sprung and had so many great images from Cole’s six month portrait session with his family that I just had to share a lot! Cuties! All of them! We were lucky to get some of the crab-apple blossoms at the park before they started to blow off the trees! Yeah! This is my favorite time of year although it’s not for my allergies! If it wasn’t for those pesky sniffles I’d be outside all day everyday! Enjoy these awesome photos! ~Jamie 
Back with Therese, Mike & their one year old Owen to capture this huge milestone in his life! We did an indoor portrait session at their home one slightly snowy day in February. Even their puppy joined in for some really adorable shots!
When Winter is in full effect you have to come up with some clever indoor ideas when you want to do family portraits. I photographed Cole and his family for his three month old session in his home in Highlands Ranch. I had fun incorporating his brother in some of the shots, when they would cooperate! As far as kids go though the Hickman’s are one of the easiest families to work with even on their off days! Since I’ve been doing the one year package with each child (this consists of a portrait shoot every three months the first year of their lives) they are becoming old pros at having their picture taken! I loved that we also incorporated more of a theme on this one because it was so close to Valentine’s Day! Super cute!
