I think the greatest gift that you can give to any grandparent is the gift of a large group family session. This gift is one that the grandparent will cherish for a lifetime and so will the entire family. My client contacted me in the early Spring inquiring about a group family session. She and her sister wanted to gift the session to her mother as a Mother’s Day gift. The session was to include her parents, both of their spouses and their toddler aged children. Although they are from Nassau County and the surrounding areas, they chose Westhampton beach as their location because they spend a lot of time as a family out there.

I love photographing extended families, but they do require a bit of strategic planning and time management. When there are very young children involved, I include at least 90 minutes for the session, which allows for breaks for the children and provides me an opportunity to photograph the various groupings that most people want to capture during a session. Believe it or not, that one formal group all eyes on camera portrait that most people want to capture during a session can take as long as 20 minutes to capture when there are little ones involved. I never rush to capture this image and my goal is to make the experience as stress free for the parents and family member as possible.

After we capture that portrait and any other formal posed images that the clients request, I try my best to also include my signature natural and emotive images. Those cozy and connected images are always my favorite from the session. For this particular session, my client chose to surprise her family and announce her second pregnancy to them. I just love that I was able to capture their reaction. I always love to be able to photograph life’s truly happy moments for families and this was one of those moments.

The night of this session was one of the many unseasonably hot September days and I was so happy that the weather held out. I was able to capture some of that gorgeous sun flare in the images. I always feel that sunsets enhance the happy emotions of these types of sessions.

I am now booking family sessions for the Spring and Summer months. My sunset sessions do tend to book up months in advance, especially for weekend dates. If you are interested in a session, feel free to contact me for more information. Here are some images to show what an extended family session gallery might look like.

If you are interested in scheduling an extended family session, contact me. My sunset sessions tend to book up a few months in advance.