Drake, like most little boys his age, is very curious and excited about exploring the world around him in detail. The fact that I wasn’t afraid to get up close and personal with my wide angle lens definitely helped.
He’s curious about cameras.
Loves to look up and say “bird, bird, bird”.
Fascinated by balloons. (And doesn’t he have the cutest little monkey toes?)
And can’t get enough of the letter “W”, which happens to be the first letter of his last name.
His mom contacted me about taking pictures of him shortly before his first birthday, in part so she could have these darling curls on record before he grew out of them.
A few weeks before the session Drake’s grandma contacted me and said she would like to pay for the session as a gift for Drake’s first birthday. We kept it a secret from his parents until the time of the session and it was fun to be part of the “reveal”. I also made sure to grab lots of pictures of their reactions to the gift since grandma wasn’t there to hand it to them herself!
Although this is a child’s session, and was priced accordingly, I tried to get a few pictures of the entire family interacting with each other. Love this genuine moment between their family!
My husband and I are preparing to start a family soon ourselves, and I found myself hoping that my children will have the kind of relationship with their father that Drake has with his. These two are close, even at Drake’s young age, and it’s obvious that they spend a lot of time together because dad knows just what to say or do to make Drake’s eyes light up and sparkle!
It was really nice to have the playground nearby to use for putting Drake in different positions. When kids can’t walk yet their “poses” tend to look really similar. 
THAT SHOT!
Sparkly eyes, curly whispy hair, soft pink lips, and cheeks you could nuzzle all day long. He’s a darling.
Those monkey toes again. I was drawn to them.
At the end of the shoot we moved Drake over to a spot on the ground (next to what we discovered was an ant ridden log) for some 1st birthday pictures. Kudos to Drake’s dad for coming up with the idea to stick the alphabet letters into the cupcakes to spell out his name! What a great touch.
After taunting him with cupcakes for several minutes (we didn’t want him to get messy yet, so we kept them out of arms reach), we let him dig in. Look at those cheeks!
By this point in time, I as a 1 year old would have polished off my second or third cupcake. Drake didn’t even really seem that interested in more than a fingerful of frosting from his first one. I don’t think his mom was complaining about that!
His face stayed pretty clean, it was his feet that needed a good washing when it was all over.
So we made our way over to the lion fountain. Coolest fountain ever, right?
Drake and fam,
Thank you so much for getting up extra early to spend the morning with me! Drake you’re a sweetie and I don’t remember you fussing once the entire time we were out there. I hope you do end up keeping those curls, the girls are most certainly going to go crazy over them!
Best,
Jenna
by Jenna
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