Hanssie Trainor | Southern California Wedding Photographer » portraits

Babies…They Scare Me.

htrainor — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 05:23:35 +0000

I want to throw this out there right now. I DO NOT DO NEWBORN PHOTOS.

Alright. Now that that is out of the way, I’m gonna do a blog post with newborn photos.

Seriously, I know my own strengths as an artist and handling newborns is NOT one of them. They scare me. Don’t get me wrong, I think babies are adorable, but I’m just not great with them. (Yes, I know. Right about now you are thinking, “Isn’t she a mother? How did she raise a daughter who was once a newborn.” The answer is, “I have NO CLUE.”)

For some people though, I will do anything for. Even take newborn photos. So, Mary, hope you like these. It’s the best I’ve got in my newborn arsenal

(P.S. If you would like to have photos done of your newborn, I can refer you to many, many extremely talented photographers that specializes in newborn photography.)

The People: Shaina & Thomas

htrainor — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:26:33 +0000

One of the first things Shaina said to me was, “I don’t take good pictures.”

Being the sarcastic person that I sometimes can be, I quipped, ” It’s a good thing I’m the one taking pictures then, huh?”

Being in front of the camera is HARD. Trust me. I’m terrible at it. But it’s important. Pictures are important.

They’ve been married for two years and had no professional photos of the two of them. And in my book, that is NOT OKAY. Not having awesome pictures to document your love and life together is sad. When life starts getting in the way, the job pressures start piling up, the babies capture your attention, pictures are important to look back on and remind you of the early days, of young love, of the carefree-ness of youth.

Shaina, you did great at “taking pictures.” You and Thomas have fun together and I hope that five, ten, twenty years from now, you look at these pictures and have them be a reminder to you to always have fun together.

Family (a portrait session)

htrainor — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 15:00:03 +0000

I grew up in a small family. There were three of us for eight years until my brother barged in and changed the whole, I’m an only child and the princess setup, as I now had to share the throne with a blanket sucking, stuffed puppy toting, drooling lump that just slept, cried and pooped. (My brother doesn’t read my blog by the way, he won’t even accept my friend request on Facebook. I can’t even imagine why…)

Still, there was only four of us. Extended family were visited rarely and I barely remembered their names (gimme a break, they were all in Chinese and I had become more fluent in English by then). Cousins, great aunts, great uncles, second cousins, fourth cousins — there was lots to keep track of and I only saw them once every few years.

So, now, as I photograph families, some of them with 10+ people (extended family and all), I watch in wonder the dynamic of a large, close knit family. It’s fun, it’s exhausting, it’s joyful. And I am thankful I get to experience a life foreign to me, if only for a little bit, and then I go back to my own little family of three. (This is one of the reasons I’ve decided to go back to doing a limited amount of portraits next year–more on that soon).

Anyway, one of the families I have had the pleasure to photograph a few times now is a family of 18+ including grandparents, great grandparents, nieces, nephew, etc. It’s always great to see how close they are and to see the babies grow up just a bit more. We drove up to Big Bear, braved the cold and car sickness (yes, we had to stop twice) for these, so enjoy

Uh oh, dilemma…

Love every expression. Wish I knew what they were thinking.

Saving the best (or my favorite at least, for last):