Baby milk bath sessions are coming back! | Arvada baby photographer

Babies grow and change so quickly during the first year of life. That tiny baby that was born just months ago is now playing, sitting, and maybe even crawling. My milestone sessions were designed specifically to capture important milestones like this. Each month I offer a slightly different milestone session theme to help you capture all the moments of the first year of your baby’s life.

This month’s baby milestone session is designed for babies 6-18 months. These baby milk bath sessions are perfect for any baby who is sitting well on their own and loves to play in the bath! I have 2 different themes for the bath sessions, the strawberry bath and the duckie sessions.

This month I am running a special on milk bath sessions in the Arvada studio space only! With your $99 booking fee you will receive 2 matted 5x7 images with the matching digital files. Additional images will be available for purchase after your session. To get more information and book contact me using the link below.

Jennifer Tavera is a Luxury family, maternity and newborn photographer in Denver Colorado who specializes in creating an experience that will make mom feel confortable, papered and beautiful so she will be excited to turn her portraits into art for her home. Sessions are available outdoors all over the Denver and Boulder area and studio sessions in the studio space in Arvada. Ready to start planning your dream session? Click below to schedule a call.

Jennifer

Balloon and floral cake smash | Arvada Baby photographer

Cake smash sessions have become a tradition as much as a senior portrait session is for a high school senior. They are a beautiful way to celebrate a baby’s first birthday and to capture a time when they are growing and changing so quickly. One of the things I am most excited about with the new studio space in Arvada is the ability to do cake smash sessions indoor for those who do not want to do them in their home. This session however is one that I shot in my own home 9 months ago, I cannot believe that I haven’t shared this beautiful baby girl on my bog yet! She is just too precious not to share even if it is almost a year later.

Every cake smash session starts with an idea. Sometimes it’s a theme, sometimes its just a few colors. Little miss Ruby’s mom knew she wanted to have a pink and gold cake smash. She saw another smash that I did last year with pink and gold flowers and loved it but I wanted to make her smash even bigger and better than the last and so I suggested the balloon arch with the flowers and vines incorporated and luckily she loved the idea!

When I do a cake smash I provide everything for the session so our next step, after I found the perfect balloons and floral, was to choose an outfit. I already had this adorable little sparkle dressing in my collection that was perfect with this theme so I just hand-made a custom headband to match the décor and complete the look!

The next step was the cake. I found a beautiful image of a cake similar to this in purples and knew it would be perfect. When you choose a smash cake you want the majority of the design to be on the side of the cake because that is the part that gets photographed the most. Luckily my favorite baker Cherry on Top bakery in Thornton, Colorado always takes my vision and makes it even better than I described!

You can expect three types of images from your cake smash session, first, before cake images, typically taken on the smash “set as your cake smash however the studio now gives me the space and freedom to do a second look for your before images if you would like. New we bring out the cake, this park looks in the photos like to take about 5 minutes but in reality I have had some kids take over and hour to get messy with the cake so don’t worry if your baby doesn’t dig right in. After the cake I can now offer milk bath images in my adorable little bath tub!

I would love to help you plan the perfect cake smash session for your baby. I have a list of theme ideas or I can create your vision or birthday party theme! Send me a message to set up a call and get all of the details!

Jennifer Tavera is a Luxury family, maternity and newborn photographer in Denver Colorado who specializes in creating an experience that will make mom feel confortable, papered and beautiful so she will be excited to turn her portraits into art for her home. Sessions are available outdoors all over the Denver and Boulder area and studio sessions in the studio space in Arvada. Ready to start planning your dream session? Click below to schedule a call.

Jennifer

My favorite images of 2020 {Northglenn, CO photographer}

With fewer than usual shoots in 2020, I thought doing a favorite image of 2020 post would be easy. But, as I look back through the images taken this year I realize choosing favorites is like trying to choose a favorite child. But, I have already started this post and so I am committing. Here are some of my favorite images taken in 2020, separated by category.

Favorite Maternity photos

Newborn Images

Family Portraits

Couples

Kids Portraits

Headshots

I wanted to take this moment to say THANK YOU to all of the amazing clients who supported my business in 2020. This year was not at all what we expected, and you trusted me in the middle of all of this to capture portraits of you and your family and that means the world to me! I look forward to many more shoots in 2021 and beyond!

Interested in more information about a session with me? Click the contact me button to book a free consolation call!

My name is Jennifer Tavera, I am one of North Denver's premier high end photographers. In 2020 I celebrated 13 years as a professional portrait photographer. I got my start back in 2007 working at a children's portrait studio, that, combine with 10 years experience raising my own 5 children means I am ready for just about anything when photographing your kids and I know how to make even the most stubborn kids laugh. I am often told by my clients that I am the only one who has ever taken a photo of them that they love. I attribute this to my superpower of knowing how to get you to relax in front of the camera.

I am passionate about capturing motherhood in all of it's stages and helping you celebrate your life through ready to hang heirloom portraits wall art. I want to take your favorite family photo. Contact me to book a free no-obligation consultation to plan your perfect portrait session.

10 tips for your cake smash! {Northglenn Baby Photographer}

Nothing is cuter than a baby covered in food, especially if that food is a Birthday cake! Cake smash sessions have become a huge tradition for first birthdays but they can take a lot of planning. I plan these sessions with my clients at the consultation call to make your session easy and so that everything is planned before you even put down your session fee so you can book in confidence. Even though I walk my clients through every step of these sessions I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a sneak peek into the process and the quality you will get doing your cake smash session with me. So here are 10 tips that I use to plan beautiful cake smash sessions for my clients.

1. Get your cake from a professional baker.

And when I say professional I don’t mean your local grocery store. There are 2 things that are VERY important when it come to the cake. #1 that it is not placed on plastic packaging that cannot be removed. There is nothing uglier than having a plastic bottom below your cake in an otherwise beautifully styled cake smash session. #2 The decorations need to be on the side. I remember early in my career there were several times when my clients provided the cake and it was plain white on the side which is all you see in at least 70% of cake smash images. Unless I shot all the photos from above you never saw the decor. This is why I have partnered with Cherry on top Bakery to provide the cakes for your session included in your session fee. She will custom design a beautiful cake to match the decor we have planned for your session.

2. Choose a theme

No, you don’t have to go all out with Elmo or Moana, but your session needs some kind of theme to give it a cohesive look. Your theme can be as simple as “pink and gold” or “nature-inspired” or more complicated like “unicorns” or “airplanes” but either way have a theme. Most moms will choose the theme of their babies party for the cake smash as well so if you are not sure that might be a great place to start. If you are not sure I will help you choose one during your consultation.

3. Choose a great location

The thing you want to consider is indoor or outdoor. Both have their advantage and disadvantage and in winter one is obviously going to be a better choice. For indoor, I can come to your home or you can come to mine. I will need a well-lit space with plenty of room and hardwood floors are best. For outdoor sessions, while I typically love locations with tall grass but for a cake smash, these locations don’t work well. During your consultation, we will discuss the best locations for a cake smash.

4. Give your baby cake before the session

The babies that really smash into their cake have had cake at least once before. even if it is just a tiny piece the week before I recommend letting them have cake before the smash.

5. Plan a minimum of 90 minutes

On average I spend about 90 minutes for setup, shooting, and clean up for a cake smash session. This includes about 45 minutes of shooting traditional portraits (No cake) 15-20 minutes shooting the cake smash and time to set up and clean up the session. Expect to spend a minimum of 90 minutes getting these images.

6. Don’t shoot your cake smash at their birthday party

I prefer cake smashes to be a separate session so we can just focus on amazing images of your child. Every once in awhile I am asked to come to shoot cake smash images at a child’s birthday party. I am going, to be honest, this is not ideal. There are too many people, too many distractions, rarely enough room for me to move, and get the angles I would like and I have little control over the setting and lighting. It’s best to plan a separate cake smash session and then another cake for the day of their party.

7. Ditch the high chair

Should you decide not to do a separate cake smash session and have them done at your child’s party, please ditch the high chair. Those high chair decoration kits from Etsy really don’t make the high chair less ugly. The best sessions are ones where the baby is sitting on the ground surrounded by the decorations with the cake In front of them. Choose a well-lit area that has plenty of space around it to set up.

8. Don’t rush baby

Cake smash images are deceiving, it always looks like the baby sat down and smashed up a cake in about 2-3 minutes. It normally takes most babies 10 minutes to even start to get messy. Don’t worry that is normal, let them take their time.

9. Come prepared for a mess

Don’t forget to pack a change of clothes, baby wipes, a wet washcloth in a ziplock bag, a towel to dry the baby off. Seriously they are going to get messy, bring all of the things.

10. Have fun with it

These photos aren’t about the perfect posed portrait, your baby is going to sit and eat the cake gingerly, barely look up, maybe cry, hopefully, get messy and eventually try to wander off. Don’t stress it, these are all about capturing something real. Sometimes baby dumps the cake and plays in it and sometimes they eat it gingerly with 2 fingers the whole time like a little prince or princess. Both are adorable and show their personality and either way, the portrait is going to be adorable hanging in your home! Let them be themselves and just enjoy the process along the way.

Sign up to join the birthday club and your child will get a free Monday Milestone session during their birthday month OR $100 off a cake smash session!

My name is Jennifer Tavera, I am one of North Denver's premier high end photographers. In 2020 I celebrated 13 years as a professional portrait photographer. I got my start back in 2007 working at a children's portrait studio, that, combine with 10 years experience raising my own 5 children means I am ready for just about anything when photographing your kids and I know how to make even the most stubborn kids laugh. I am often told by my clients that I am the only one who has ever taken a photo of them that they love. I attribute this to my superpower of knowing how to get you to relax in front of the camera.

I am passionate about capturing motherhood in all of it's stages and helping you celebrate your life through ready to hang heirloom portraits wall art. I want to take your favorite family photo. Contact me to book a free no-obligation consultation to plan your perfect portrait session.

You should do this every year for your child's birthday! {Denver Kids Photography}

Birthday’s in my house are a big deal. As a December baby who never had more than a few good friends at a time birthday parties when I was a kid were rare. It was hard being so close to the holidays and since I didn’t have a million friends to invite my chances of getting more than one kid, typically my best friend, to even show to a party was rare. So when my first born joined this earth the day before my birthday and 6 days before Christmas I swore that he would never go without a party, even if that party was our family and a few really good friends.

There is only one birthday tradition in our family that is more sacred than the birthday party, and that is the birthday portrait. Portraits of me that were not taken at school were more rare than birthday parties and lets face it that assembly line photography done on school portrait day does not typically show your best side. So every year, at very least once a year but typically a few times, my kids get a new portrait. Sometimes they are just traditional portraits, and sometimes they are birthday themed with balloons and decorations, and sometimes I go crazy and plan a shoot around their birthday party theme like this mermaid shoot I did for my 6 year old’s birthday session, it doesn’t matter much the type of portraits so much as documenting their lives as they grow and change.

The Birthday Club!

Monday Milestones

I launched my Monday Milestone sessions because I wanted to make it easy for families to have new images of their child captured every year. Like my children’s birthday sessions I offer traditional portraits, seasonal themes, customized birthday shoots and more to make your session special. Now I want to make it even easier to get those portraits taken for your child’s birthday!

Introducing the birthday club! Every year for your child’s birthday I will send them a birthday gift! In 2021 that gift will be a free Monday Milestone session! You birthday coupon code will trade in your $100 Monday Milestone session fee for a $50 deposit and session retainer that can be used towards your prints, a total of $100 in savings.

Get signed up now!

My name is Jennifer Tavera, I am one of North Denver's premier high end photographers. In 2020 I celebrated 13 years as a professional portrait photographer. I got my start back in 2007 working at a children's portrait studio, that, combine with 10 years experience raising my own 5 children means I am ready for just about anything when photographing your kids and I know how to make even the most stubborn kids laugh. I am often told by my clients that I am the only one who has ever taken a photo of them that they love. I attribute this to my superpower of knowing how to get you to relax in front of the camera.

I am passionate about capturing motherhood in all of it's stages and helping you celebrate your life through ready to hang heirloom portraits wall art. I want to take your favorite family photo. Contact me to book a free no-obligation consultation to plan your perfect portrait session.

Lillie {Westminster Colorado Family Photographer}

I photographed my first Gus Gift session last month. I can already tell that the greatest blessing to this program is going to be meeting these amazing families, these amazing women who have gone through the unimaginable and stayed strong for their families and who came out of these experiences as stronger people.

For those of you who are not yet familiar with the Gus Gift, it is a program for families who are facing the loss of a child or who have a child who has overcome a life-threatening illness or condition. I hope to bless families who have children with cancer, conditions like Trisomy 13 and 18, who have been in a life-threatening accident or who were born dangerously premature or with a life-threatening condition. I am currently donating a session and digital files every quarter to one of these families as well as giving them a print credit equal to 15% of print sales from the previous quarter. I hope to eventually grow my business to have enough revenue to bless a family with this gift every month so please help me get the word out about my business and this program to help me meet that vision and goal!

In the meantime, I'd love to tell you about this beautiful family who was my first Gus' Gift recipient.

Meet Lillie, she is about to turn two years old. She was born on October 21, 2017, at only 25 weeks gestation via emergency c section. Her mother, Kelli, had what is known as HELLP syndrome which had caused her organs to begin to shut down. At birth Lillie only weighed 1lb 4oz and was just 8.5 inches long.

Having a child born this early, and this small is scary enough in itself but in addition to her early birth on her first day of life, Lillie developed a hole in her lung and had to have a chest tube placed.

Lillie was 12 days old before her parents were able to hold her. She spent the first 4 and a half months of her life, a total of 133 days in the NICU.

She came home on March 3rd, 2018, a month past her original due date and still on oxygen. Then in June of 2018, she stopped eating and was throwing up constantly. They had to return to the hospital for surgery to have a gtube, a feeding tube through her belly, placed. Lillie is still fed through the gtube for now but has come such a long way since her birth! I hope to have the honor to continue to see her grow as I have no doubt this little miracle is destined for great things!

I am also so inspired by Kelli her mother, despite all of the challenges of raising a young child who has additional medical needs she graduated on May 18th, 2019 with an MA in mental health counseling! I asked Kelli what one thing she would want to tell mothers at the beginning of their NICU journey and this is what she said: “It is going to be hard, possibly one of the hardest things you've ever been through. Find a way to take care of yourself. That might be taking a day away from the NICU occasionally, going to therapy, having a weekly coffee date with another mom in the NICU or a friend, or even going back to work while your baby is in the NICU.”

I am so honored to have been able to photograph this beautiful little girl and her family and to tell a little bit of their story!

If you know a family who has a child with a life-threatening illness or condition and would like to learn more about the Gus' Gift program and nominate that family please visit www.truth-photography.com/nominate

To help support this program by booking your own photo session please contact me below:

My name is Jennifer Tavera, owner, photographer and gallery designer for Truth Photography LLC. I have created beautiful custom portraiture for my clients here in the Denver and Boulder Colorado areas for the past 12 years! I specialize in growing families including children, maternity, and newborn. I love what I do and I cannot wait to share my passion with all of you.

As a busy mom myself, I understand that you need a photographer who will go the extra mile to help you with every aspect of creating cherished imagery of your family.

I would love to become YOUR family photographer and can't wait for us to get to know each other better!

The meeting that indirectly helped launch my business {Northglenn CO Children's Photographer}

I first met Chelsey over 10 years ago when I was still a studio photographer. For those of you who don’t know I worked in a national children’s portrait studio for 2.5 years before they closed all of their studios without notice when my oldest son was 3 weeks old, but that’s a story for another time. Back to this story, she came into the studio with her daughter, who was only a few months old at the time, for a milestone photo shoot. I was not her photographer that day, in fact, I don’t even remember for sure if I helped her, I may have sold her her prints, but I sold prints to thousands of customers at my time there. What I do remember was about a week later my coworker Kayla wanted to meet with me to show me the new business opportunity she was starting and when I arrived she was there with Chelsey.

Chelsey was, and still is, a business owner with Arbonne international, an awesome company that sells skin care, make up, health/weight loss and more that is all about being Pure, Safe, and Beneficial for your body. This meeting helped change a lot of things in my life. After this meeting I starting looking at lot more at the safety of the products I am putting in and on my body, I started a new friendship and became closer to another friend and most importantly I started my first business which gave me many of the foundations for my business today. I was with Arbonne for about 2 years and while it didn’t wind up being the right business for me (I still love the product and believe in the business though), I have remained friends with Chelsey and watched her grow an amazing and successful business with the company.

Over the years I have been honored to be able to photograph her children on a few different occasions and they never disappoint as being the perfect models! My session with them last month is no exception. They have grown into such beautiful young people and despite the load of raising two kids and running a successful business Chelsey has not changed a bit over that time, she is still as beautiful, energetic and fun as she was 10+ years ago. I guess she can probably thank her awesome products for the energy and eternal youth ;)

I am excited to share a few of the images from her kids session with you all today. Seriously aren’t they just the perfect models? The images down at the bottom where they are standing I let them pose themselves!

If you are interested in learning more about Chelsey’s business or her products you can visit her Facebook page or Website below:

www.chelseycrittendon.arbonne.com
https://www.facebook.com/ChelseysArbonnePage/

My name is Jennifer Tavera, the photographer behind Truth Photography. I am a Northglenn Colorado family photographer and gallery designer seeking adventurous, free spirited families. I believe that your life is epic and deserves to be captured with photography!

I specializes in creating unique photo sessions that will be an adventure for your child or family and turning the finished portraits into beautiful wall art for your home. I can’t wait to photograph your next adventure!!

~Jennifer Tavera Photographer and Gallery designer

Want to stay up to date on the latest news, events and session openings? Join my insider's club to make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Want to stay up to date on the latest news, events and session openings? Join my insider's club to make sure you don’t miss a thing!