I love "the love" in this picture

I have been wanting to post this picture for awhile, and I'm just now getting around to it.  It's one of my favorites from Ayla's 6 month session.  If you didn't know this, I'm a big fan of Tamara Lackey's work (and Rachel Garrison too (my sister-in-law), who is no longer working there since she is expecting her bundle of joy any day now), hence the reason I hired Tamara to shoot Sam and I's wedding.  In her book The Art of Children's Portrait Photography, she talks about the reason she got into photography.  One of the main reasons was that she was on the hunt for the perfect portrait of her family (and by perfect she's not talking about the posed, structured portrait that your family has done by Olin Mills).  If you're interested portrait photography, it's a must buy book, and she explains herself much better than I can.  Whenever I'm given the honor to photography families and children, I really try to capture the true emotions in front of my camera.  It's a work in progress for me, I always walk away from a photo session with many lessons learned, which is a good thing!

So onto the picture, I just LOVE the way Nara is looking at her daughter in this picture, and Jeff looks completely lost in his happiness at the moment.  Ayla isn't even looking at the camera, but to me it doesn't matter.  This photo just shouts out love to me!

On a completely different note, Nara gave me a great compliment, I have to share!  Ayla as you can see has beautiful porcelain skin.  At the moment it doesn't appear that she has any of the DeJesus/Puerto Rico tan skin.  Nara's comment about this was something along the line of, "hopefully Ayla can pull off pale like Meredith."  Haha, too funny!  I read in a fashion magazine like 5 - 8 years ago that "pale is in," and I've been saying that ever since.  So people reading this, it's mid-July I know you're outside, make sure you wear sunscreen and protect your skin : )