My favorite thing to photograph, is eyes.  My favorite images that I get from a session are these tack sharp images where the eyes just seem to sparkle.  Some people like to zoom out and get the whole background and I think these are gorgeous but my favorite shot to get is incredible close up, tack sharp sparkly eyes with bokeh in the background.  It’s the one shot that if I can get in a session, I’m happy, good to go, pleased.  Now don’t get me wrong, I like zoomed out images with stunning backgrounds and I’ve been forcing myself to step back and be more creative to try and get those.  But there is something about sparkle eyes that just speaks to me.

Cora has the best sparkle eyes.  For one thing her eyes are huge!  Beautifully so.  It’s the first thing you notice about her, these big sparkly eyes staring at you.  She’s so incredibly observant, she sits back and just watches you as if she’s trying to figure you out.  She’s shy, but brave, observant but also likes to interact.

I should back track… Cora is Sterling (my boyfriend)’s niece.  His sister Sarah had Cora last October and she’s the cutest little thing going.  They came to visit us last weekend and we spent the weekend going to the pool, hanging out and watching movies, and going to Maymont Park.  Cora is precious!  She giggles and smiles all the time and can even walk now!  It’s cool getting to watch her learn things as she looks around and interacts with her environment.  She was so fascinated with the dogs.  She would crawl around and they would come up and lick her face, talk about cute!

While they were here, right before we left for Maymont, Sarah asked me if I’d take some pictures of them at the park and try to recreate an image she has of her and her mom.  I had never been to Maymont before this time and I loved it. I had no idea how big it was! We were there for a few hours and only saw a small portion of it.  There were families that had brought picnics and birthday cakes, were rolling around in the grass playing and enjoying the day.  It was perfect for little kids since Maymont has lots of animals and plenty of space to run.

While we walked back we found this shady little spot and stopped for a little to take these images.  They aren’t a perfect match to the original image so we may have to try again but they are pretty close.  Cora is even wearing the romper Sarah wore in the original. 🙂  I’m also so glad we got some with her binky in her mouth.  I kind of love when parents let me take pictures with their kids and their binkies or blankies because it’s such a special part of this age.  I just think it ages them in a way that when you’re older looking at the pictures you’ll remember how little they were and the little things that made up their days.

This was Cora waving at us but it looks like she is pardoning us of our sins 🙂

This trip was the first time since Cora was little that she let Sterling hold her and walk with her!

Sarah, don’t hate me for posting this but I kind of love it!

The original of Mrs. Travis and Sarah and then Sarah and Cora. 🙂