san francisco bay area maternity, child and family photographer » CHILDREN

love monkey

alpana — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:41:12 +0000

Two monkeys, two hearts come together to celebrate Valentine’s Day! Have a wonderful one.

hair makeover in a pinterest shirt

alpana — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:21:45 +0000

I stumbled upon a “hair makeover”in progress and grabbed my camera for some quick shots. A few more on the facebook page if you want to take a peek. Talking about Pinterest, have you checked it out? It is a great place to explore and share visual inspiration from the web. And if you fancy checking out my boards to see what inspires me or catches my fancy click here.

nick and his momma

alpana — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:18:05 +0000

These images in this blog post are a mix of film and digital. I photographed this funny and handsome eight year old dude and his mom last year and have been wanting to share some of the images from their session. I asked Rhonda if she could guest blog a post and she agreed. I thought might be fun for readers to see it how the day rolls and any random thoughts through a client’s perspective. I love that my client’s are able to put their faith in me and go along with my crazy ideas! Read on to see what this mom’s experience was like…

Two years ago, I was fortunate enough to meet Alpana of Storybox Art and after she took Nicholas’ photos at 6 ½ years I knew that I had found the person to document him all the way through his teen years and into young adulthood provided of course, that Alpana doesn’t have other plans for the next ten to twelve years and that Nicholas remains cooperative. Alpana has a gift for not only capturing his joyous smiles and silliness but also his other expressions and looks that are so meaningful to me – even the ones that sometimes drive me nuts. She has an incredible way of literally photographing one’s whole personality.

This particular set of photos was done precisely at 8 ½ years of age because I wanted to make sure I had photographs of Nicholas’ gappy smile and still-to-be-grown-into front teeth. I actually regret not having photos done at around 7 ½ years of age when his front teeth were missing but I’m thrilled that I will have these photos to remember this phase in which all of those teeth that we walked the floor over and cried copious tears of angst over as they were coming in eight years ago — are now falling out. I have a feeling that the next set of photos at age 10 or so will be even more telling in terms of the little man who is morphing into a not-so-little man.

Wondering what a photo session with Alpana is like? Here’s a summary of what to expect based on our recent experience. First, you’ll agree on a date, time and place. Pretty simple stuff. The day of the photo session you’ll race the kid home from school and quickly get him bathed and styled. He should still look like himself – just cleaner and with pants that don’t have holes in the knees. You will probably also want to skip cartoon graphic t-shirts and loud stripes or distracting colors. Alpana will give you advice on what to wear. Listen to her. She really knows this stuff.

And then Alpana will ring you up and casually drop a bomb: She would like YOU to be in the pictures, too. WHAT? Can I lose 20 lbs, get my hair done and find some anti-aging miracle crème that works in say, two hours? You try to say no. NO. GOD, NO! But Alpana just has this quiet determined way of getting what she wants. So, once you have yourself and the kiddo ready to go you head over to the “cool old house” that Alpana has been raving about and wants to use as the backdrop for the photos.

You’re imagining “cool old house” to be a quaint but abandoned gingerbread cottage with ivy growing amongst its eaves. You pull up and the kid says, “Where are we? This place is WEIRD!” You see the cool old (circa 1985), house that has been ravaged by vandals instead of ivy sitting up on a hill behind a chain link fence with most of its broken windows boarded up with plywood. “Surely this isn’t it?” you think but then there is Alpana pulling up right behind you with a big excited smile on her face. “Isn’t this place great?!” she exclaims. Weakly, you nod in agreement. “And the lighting is gorgeous at this time of day!” she says. And you have to agree – it’s approximately 5:30 p.m. on an early fall afternoon and the place, although creepy looking, is lit up in a beautiful, soft golden light.

You head up the hill after Alpana where she will spend a few minutes scouting out the best location and then it’s time to get to work. You’re told several times to please walk away and stand somewhere by yourself and out of your kid’s line of vision because the two of you cannot stop cracking up. You stand near the fence and see several people in the neighborhood walk by and look at you with raised eyebrows. You hope you’re not trespassing but before you can give it much more thought you realize the sun has nearly set and Alpana calls it a wrap.

You drive home chatting happily about how much fun you had and wasn’t that house weird and spooky? Then, a couple of weeks later, Alpana will send you an email with a link to your gallery of proofs. You’ll be excited and will open the link only to immediately tear up – it’s amazing –she’s captured his entire personality, his beautiful smile, his joy, his goofiness, his tentativeness and all of that growing up that you suspected was happening. You’ll also be thrilled that you finally gave in and had a few pictures taken with your kid. Alpana was absolutely right on that point. And what do you know? That “cool old house” really does look cool.

~ Rhonda

in film

alpana — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:09:24 +0000

I am participating again this month in the blog carousel with some amazing photographers from around the globe. The topic this month is alternative cameras and my hope was to share some recent images taken my 35 mm film camera. They didn’t quite make it back in time (haha, no instant gratification with film) so I am sharing a few random images that I shot of my boy last fall. They are perhaps a tad underexposed but better than some of my other choices. Be sure to check out June Kuiper, Grand Rapids family photographer next with her interpretation.

And if you are wondering why film? I have come back full circle to shooting film after a workshop last year. Back in the old days, when there was no digital I started my photography journey shooting 35 mm film at art school. Back in college, I went hiking in the Himalayas solely because of my lovely for photography and captured these with my Olympus OM1. My hope this year to shoot more film for personal work and perhaps offer a few film sessions on a discounted basis. If you are interested in a film session shoot me email an email through the contact form and we can chat

you better not cry…

alpana — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:15:22 +0000

Abby and her family

alpana — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:30:56 +0000

Abby’s mom had contacted me about a session over a year back. Finally, the stars aligned and we did their session on an overcast day back in November. Prior to our session, mom had told me a bit about Abby and her two sisters and I was excited to meet them. I was a bit nervous as well not having photographed anyone in a similar situation. Mom was open to going anywhere local she could navigate Abby’s wheelchair and I settled on a local park. Just as we got started the clouds rolled in at an inopportune time but we rolled with the punches and captured some moments of the family together. It was pretty amazing to see the love and affection the family had for one another. Hugs and kisses. There is so much unspoken in the way this family cared for each other. And mom being the pillar of strength navigating through the session with multitude of emotions. These pictures are a surprise present for dad for the holidays! Mom ordered a memory box that I hope to share in a few weeks after the holidays. Meanwhile, dad will be getting some favorite prints for the holidays.

I had asked mama if it was okay to share some info about Abby after getting some questions after a facebook photo share. This is what mom shared with me about her little girl. “She has a brain injury from an accident she experienced at age 4. We were in the hospital with her for 4 months, not knowing how severe the injury was and what the effects would be. The good news is that Abby remains medically healthy. She goes to school and really loves her teacher and the kids around her. She loves to watch movies and she just lights up when family and friends are around and playing with her. She’s just as social as she ever was!

Abby just had a surgery recently and has been in my thoughts. Hope she is recovering well and getting stronger each day!

Mumbai Diaries 2010

alpana — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 03:03:30 +0000

My mission is to create an album from the pictures of our trip to India last year. Personal projects have taken a backseat and I finally got inspired to work on them for the blog carousel with some talented photographer friends this month. The theme is “texture” and with my love of all things old I thought I would work on one of the images from this series. The series was photographed at Cafe Britannia in Mumbai. Britannia is a popular Irani restaurant located in an charming business neighborhood in the city. I loved this place with its paint-peeling walls, vaulted ceilings, homey atmosphere, and most of all the adorable 88 year old owner Boman Irani that came around to chat with the patrons at the restaurant. He had a story to tell and share pictures from the days of the British in India to a letter from Queen Elizabeth. And his son, Afshin was kind enough to let me take photos thanks to my brother Abodh’s connection with him.

Only the top image has a texture play (as it takes some time to manipulate the image). The image is compiled with a couple of textures I photographed in India as well and manipulated in Photoshop. I thought the story wouldn’t be complete if I only posted a single image and the images are so rich with texture even without my play on it. Besides it got me working on the rest of the images for the album. At the bottom of the post I will share the textures used for the image above. Back the carousel entries…be sure to journey on to the next carousel entry by Corey, Atlanta children’s photographer.

Boman Irani holding paper with Queen Elizabeth story

Below are the two textures used in creating the first image in this post. If you would like to play with them yourself, drop me a line with your email and I will send them your way! One of my favorites textured images is this holiday card from last year.

once upon a time in a meadow

alpana — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:33:01 +0000

A few impromptu photos of the cousins with my little man during our recent visit to the Marin Headlands after a stop at Muir Woods. The kids spent a little time being silly, laughing, and letting me take a few photos in this lovely meadow. These photos are a mix of digital and film that I have been exploring for personal work. Brings back memories of my good old days of shooting film back in college and through art school when there was no digital camera. The last image is a cameo appearance of me with my family that my sister-in-law was kind enough to take after setting up my camera for her.

Thank you for stopping by! If you haven’t “liked” our facebook page please do so to check out sneak peek and other news.

family photos on a overcast day

alpana — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:31:53 +0000

There was a lot of anticipation for this family photo session that mama booked months back scheduled to work around my New York trip in late September. Murphy’s law prevailed and it turned out to be a wet, cold week in the duration of my stay out there. I don’t think I have ever checked the weather channel to the extent I did hoping to catch one of the better day/times for their shoot. The family was willing to be flexible and stayed on-call to let me pick the best day/time. We did their shoot on a pretty overcast day expecting rain the next day. Even with our dreary weather, the family persevered and we had lots of fun together. Their six year old daughter was quite the mama’s girl and almost year old baby boy was daddy’s boy. Perfect, to have one of each. It was wonderful to capture their connections and spend time hanging out. Such a wonderful treat to meet his lovely family! So grateful that my job gives me these wonderful opportunities to meet good people.

family of three

alpana — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:45:48 +0000

I was really excited to work with this family for their signature album session. They booked a family portrait session that would result in the fabulous Manhattan Album keepsake for their family starring their almost one year old baby boy. Little Ko-chan was able to stand assisted which made for a wonderful milestone and perfect time for the session. Check out this adorable little guy and his myriad of expressions here as well. Konnichiwa N family and I hope you treasure these images forever.