03 Sep Amelia The One-Year Old Mermaid
What do you get when you mix one-year old baby girl Amelia with sun, sandy beach, and a mermaid tail? A really, really precious set of photos to cherish forever! Spending the day in the sun with the Almazar family was a blast, just like our first shoot together, where we celebrated and captured Amelia’s 6-month milestones. This time around we had fun dressing up, walking, and playing with seashells. All of the visuals for this shoot needed to stack up perfectly to tell the beach story we wanted, but here in the Tacoma area, the “beaches” are not exactly covered in sand, at all. And that is where this fun adventure starts – finding that perfect location.
Rocks, rocks, and more rocks. You can’t get away from them very easily around here when it comes to the beaches. I actually love them, however, for this shoot we needed that almost East Coast beachy look. The sand, the grasses, the bleached beach wood. It kicked off what turned out to be an all-day scouting journey in the surrounding areas. It’s a times like these where it seems the very thing you need for a particular shoot seems to becomes the most rare thing on the planet. You can be tripping over a certain type of location or prop for months, like it’s annoyance, and then one day a shoot concept calls for that very thing and it’s no where to be found. Luckily, Tacoma offers a great variety of locations which make due for the majority of my shoots. For this particular shoot, our scouting found success just North of the Gig Harbor area.
“This tail won’t stop me from walking”
Ideal location – check. Cute baby – check. Awesome mermaid outfit – check. Let the cameras start clicking and the flashes poppin’. The funny thing about putting a one-year old in a leg-confining mermaid tail is that it is completely contradictive to everything they have been encouraged to be doing as of late – using their legs and motor about. They like their new found, speedier mode of transport and they want to use it. Of course, one of Amelia’s milestones at this age is walking. So we also worked in a beach walking scene with the parents, Annie and Josh.
Love the UK-themed shoes, and a “proper” fit given Josh’s heritage. To top-off our great location was this little hut built from beach wood. Awesome, right?
Amelia loves her books. So much so, we used one that made sounds to keep her attention in the direction of the camera. We plopped her down in the beach grass, and she was content.
Amelia wanted to stand, and wave.
This is one happy, flying mermaid! I love how Amelia’s toes are poking out of the tail.
It was such a nice day, and we were able to capture so many fun photos of Almazar family! I can’t wait for our next shoot together, along with documenting Amelia’s growing up! The only questions is… what will we do next?!
Here are a couple BTS shots. Getting Amelia into position, keeping her entertained with seashells, and making sure she doesn’t fall over after trying to stand up in the mermaid tail.
“Light check on aisle 5”
Gotta be on your toes and ready to catch a baby who wants to stand without legs!