Location sessions are my favorite. A location session with a one year old is even better! Now take that and add in a gorgeous public garden, beautiful outfits, balloons and bubbles and we’ve got the makings of the perfect photo session. Last week I had the joy of photographing a little lady for her first birthday. Her mom had wanted flowers in the photos and I was able to make a few suggestions. In the end she followed my lead and we decided Francis Park rose garden would be wonderful. Despite a very overcast day, a large part of the garden being replanted and the possibility of being eaten alive by mosquitoes, it turned out to be a great place and day to shoot.

I spent a little bit of time bonding with Little M as her mom ran back to the car for the balloons, which is something I like to do with young ones anyway. I think it makes them more comfortable about being so close to me while I take their pictures. She was a bit apprehensive at first but once she saw those balloons floating towards her, she was all giggles and smiles. And she stayed that way for the rest of the hour long session.

We quickly moved the props around to the west side of Francis Park where there is a landscaped area that overlooks the Grand River. This area was exactly what I wanted for the balloon shots. Being up so high allowed the images to have a floating look.

After taking an adequate amount of balloon images we switched it up to a new outfit and created a more relaxed, mature feel.

Then mom brought out the tornado. It was a bubble blowing machine that dips about 20 bubble wands into the mixture and twirls around to blow each one, one after the other. This produced quite a lot of bubbles and some very interesting images. Little M liked this part a lot. I let her have a little play time and took quite a few candid shots of her.

Lastly we walked back to the flower gardens and posed our little cutie amongst the roses. I think these images were my favorite. Our only problem here was a maintenance worker had shown up and he was using a power edger or something that made a loud noise. We had a hard time keeping our little subject from checking it out.

All in all we had a very lovely time. I hope little M and her mom will cherish this time together and have the memory memorialized in a beautiful photograph.