A Cold, Rainy Day to Meet Santa

Here’s a glimpse of my Santa minis at Prospect Farms, in Lawrenceville, Ga. This is my most popular session all year. Santa Doug, here, is the best Santa I’ve ever worked with or seen around kids. He’s soft spoken, slow moving around kids and has his own props for the kids to use during their session. He has multiple gestures he uses to make your photos pop. I love using him every year and if you sign up for your own Santa session, you will too.

Look at this décor! For every session I shoot, I try to remember to take photos of all the décor before my first session. I use to be an avid scrapbooker and needed to remember every detail so I assume everyone else wants to remember everything as well. I always include these extra photos in your gallery but don’t worry, these are not included as apart of the number of images I promise you.

This year, I had all the kids walk to Santa so I could take photos of the back of their dresses/outfits. I really like the way this turned out. It helped get some photos for the shy kids who didn’t want to get too close to Santa this year.

Once I go through my shot list and if time allows, I like to get extra photos of the child or children by themselves. Just incase you aren’t able to update a family session, I’ve got you covered during your mini session. If this is an important shot for me to capture for you, please let me know before your session and I’ll start off doing this first. The photo on the top left, here, is my favorite photo. This is my daughter and she lost her four front teeth before this. Two teeth on top and two on the bottom. She smiled so big for me and I can see all of her missing teeth. I even had her retake her yearbook pictures so I could remember the same toothless smile.

Close ups like this are my favorite. I see the age of innocence when I photograph children like this. No matter if they’re holding hands, holding a toy or I capture a couples embrace, I love soft, tender moments like this.

Jenna was so excited to see her name on Santa’s scroll. This is all she talked about for the next few days. Luckily, all the kids in my session had their names on the scroll, this year.

Moving on to the next thing I love is when the ladies wear long dresses that swirl and have movement. When you wear clothing that can be used as a prop, you will most likely receive more images. Other props you can include are scarves, hats (that can be removed for some photos) jackets, or anything you can layer.

This was one of Santa’s props he brought. This was so funny with the older kids. The ones who are “too old for Santa” but still want to be included. We all had a lot of laughs taking this photo. The parents kept telling her to flip the sign to naughty or not lie to Santa. She was laughing, we all had a good time.

If you have little ones who won’t sit still, I still invite you to join the mini sessions. If you need to arrive twice as early so your kids can get acquainted with their surrounding or see everyone else taking photos and having a good time, they may enjoy their session a lot more. Or with less tears. I had to do this when my daughter was younger and it helped a lot. I didn’t get many photos with just the boys because the older child didn’t want to leave his mom. I still made the photo work and was able to photoshop the parents out of the photo so it looked like the boys were having a great time with Santa.

With this little boy, I had to ease him into the session. He wasn’t so sure of Santa and didn’t want to get close to him at first. Santa read his body language and offered to step outside of the greenhouse. I took some photos of him using the surroundings and making him smile.

Next, I asked him if we could play a game like musical chairs. I told him I needed Santa to come back in and sit on the couch so I could get some photos of him by the door in front of Santa. He agreed but kept his eye on Santa. Santa even had an idea of his own. He went outside and peeped in through the window.

At this point, the little boy figured Santa was pretty safe and when Santa came back inside the greenhouse, Santa offered a fist bump and the boy happily accepted.

Once I get the other photos in my shot list, I end the session with these photos. These are pretty boring in person. Every time I tell the kids to look in Santa’s bag and pretend they see amazing toys, they always look at me so confused. They’re like, “but the bag is empty.” lol. I always explain what I’m going to do with their photo and that helps but until you see for yourself, I look kind of crazy taking photos with an empty bag.

If you like what you see, I invite you to follow my work on Facebook page at Paul Ashton Photography. You can also keep tabs on my sessions here https://book.usesession.com/i/2vq1XcoTE

I also photograph weddings, so if you know anyone looking for a wedding photographer, that’s my jam. Please hit me up 😉

Y’all enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy everything,

Christy