Just a little advice for everyone here...

My wife and I were looking for a photographer to take pictures of our daughter, Abby. On a whim, I posted an ad on Craigslist under creative gigs to see what we could find. I mentioned that I was not looking for prints, just a CD with the files and a copyright release. In the end, we received over 40 responses from independent photographers, studios, and students. A couple even offered to do it for free to build their portfolio and a model release to use the pictures for advertising. We got some flakes and hacks, but this exercise proved to be very useful. In the end, we took advantage of one of the free offers.

2 bits.

Dan

Interestingly, we just had a private photo shoot a couple weeks ago. Our 2 year old, turned a few weeks ago, goes crazy at the portrait studio where we do the monthlys with our baby and did with him up to a year ago. He wants to run and, try as they do, the people in the studio suck at dealing with mobile children. They don't seem to understand that there is a time limit for having a kid's attention when the temperature is 90+ in a confined space. So we had to look elsewhere for other options.

We'd heard a rumor that a friend wanted to make some money moonlighting as a photographer. And since he took these photos last summer just for fun:

We knew who to turn to.

He did a 2.5 hour photo shoot at his cousin's house, inside and out. His cousin is the friend that introduced us in the first place. All told, he took over 500 photos and sorted through them in two days and had prints to us a day later, along with a disc with a little more than 50 photos, all high res. He did photos of Duncan, mostly. He also did some family portraits and photos of our baby. We hadn't talked about what we'd pay him. When we finally got an answer from him, he had flown to Japan right after delivering the photos, he said that we give him some of my beer. So, I'm brewing a batch just for him. Cost of about $25.

Anyway, I think the best thing you can do is find someone who works well with your kids and knows what they're doing. These people make themselves known rather quickly and don't have to cost a lot of money to hire. The equipment is a lot more affordable and the technology to turn out quality product is there for them, no matter the scale.

Oh, I should share...

This is a collage he made of some Duncan photos.

Pretty pictures are worth the price and hassle. Cool creative solutions, guys. I have one set professionally shot photos of my kids, and I treasure them. When I left my teaching gig as a drama teacher, I was given a triptych of my kids all in theatrical costumes.

One of the best presents I've ever received.