The first step is always to contact me. From there, we'll settle on your session type and the day, time, and location of your session. I'll send a link where you'll pay your booking fee online and that will officially put your reservation on the calendar. Emailing britt@renderphotography.com is the best way to get a hold of me.

Two weeks after your session, I'll reach out with an online gallery of preview images and you'll have one week to use a super easy favorites tool to mark images that you'd like to purchase. From there, I give a little extra photoshop love to your favorite images, then republish the gallery with the shopping cart turned on. The shopping menu will allow you to purchase digital files, wall prints, and canvases. Album orders are designed and invoiced through me directly upon request.

First, tell your kiddo what to expect — “britt will be in charge and we’ll all need to do just what she says. she’ll have games for us to play and there will be plenty of time to be silly!”
Second, a bribe, "it will be fun and it will go by fast, but we will have to use our listening ears and follow directions to earn our treat, right?” Plan to celebrate after a good session — maybe going out to ice cream, doing a favorite activity, or simply earning a treat from mom’s purse on the ride home. Having something to work for is motivating!
Third, a backup bribe. this is for the ones who are half way through their 25 minutes and are unmoved by a far-off promise of ice-cold dairy, but might be motivated by an instant reward (this was my little guy from 2 to 4 yrs old). Don’t talk about this one ahead of time or it could be an unnecessary distraction, but your ace-in-the-hole is a mess-free, colorless, tiny treat — like yogurt melts or mini marshmallows. They’re a great idea to have in your purse if nothing is working but some old fashioned one-to-one ratio of smiles to treats might — one smile, one treat, repeat. #parenting #bribery #notcreatinganoblehumanchildonportraitday.
Fourth, full tummies. plan to have a meal or a substantial snack before your session. Hangry kids (and adults!) are the worst.

Dressing for portraits can be a challenge — you want to tow the line between wearing something that is totally you and wearing something that tells the story of what a strong, beautiful, fairytale family you are. The most useful concept for me in dressing a family is to remember that the eye is drawn to the point of greatest contrast in an image. If one person wears white and everyone has on dark shades, your eye goes there. If everyone is in subdued solids and one person has a rainbow sweater on, our eye goes there. So the goal is to choose a color palette (a color palette is 3-5 related colors) and repeat those colors throughout the group to seek balance. This keeps the eye moving around the image and drawn to faces and expressions.

Oh my goodness, getting your images off of your screen and into real life is so important. There are actual studies done proving a child’s self-worth is higher when they can see themselves in family photos displayed in the home! Not to mention that hard drives crash and storage drives become obsolete in no time. But a hand-crafted album on your coffee table or on your shelf is there to stay. Album pricing is based on the size of the book and the number of images in it — so you really can get exactly what you want. To start an album design, you’ll mark the images you’d like to appear in your album by making a favorites folder in your online gallery. Next you’ll contact me to put together a design layout. 2-3 days later I’ll have a design preview up and you can make up to two rounds of changes before you approve a final draft. Then I’ll send an invoice and we’ll confirm your size and cover material choices. Timelines for the album process vary a bit since each step depends on client review and approval, but most orders take about 2 weeks from the selection of favorites, through design, ordering, production, and shipping. Click on your session type above to see album pricing.

remember that you can receive $100 off an album when you’ve purchased a digital collection of 25 images or more.

I've divided my pricing into two steps and it works great for this rare scenario. The booking fee you pay at the time of booking covers my time and talent on the day of the session with no obligations or purchase minimums. Keep your attitude positive during the session because often we are able to get more joyful content than it may appear. And if, after viewing your previews, you are still unhappy, you can purchase nothing, dust yourself off, and try again on a different day :)

Overcast skies are great for portraits. I LOVE it when it gets windy and hair blows all around. A little bit of light rain is no problem. Snow is fantastic and there are few temperatures that bother me. I love all kinds of weather for portraits and I try to keep every appointment that goes on the books because I understand how tough it can be to get a whole group together. If we get a considerable amount of rain, however, we may need to cancel a session and reschedule for another day, and I do my best to be in contact at least two hours before the session time if it looks like we’ll need to do that.