Shannon Montez Photography Blog » San Jose's Family and Child Photographer, Shannon Montez, captures all aspects of family life: Families, newborns, children, babies, high school seniors, and weddings.

Here’s my own!

Last summer we had a fun group vacation at Lake Tahoe. We rented a big house and stayed all together. Sounds like the recipe for disaster, right? Wrong. I think the reason it worked so well was that there were few expectations. Other than splitting the cost of the house and the food and being the designated cook for one dinner, the rest of our time was unplanned and open. A lot of the time we did the same things, but it was up to each family each day as to how they spent the day. Open, relaxed, fun… just the way a vacation should be!

One evening I took pictures for the whole family, and a friend of my mom’s came to snap the large groups (after I set it up), and my awesome sister-in-law Jami took the pictures of my family. In keeping with my goal to have smaller, less intimidating (to me) blog posts, I’ll just post a link to the slideshow instead. It makes me happy to watch this. I love these people. I love the song. I love the setting. I love the memory.

I’ve decided I actually like large family groups. I used to find them to be too stressful and a little bit intimidating. But (maybe from shooting weddings and getting used to that feeling), I’ve decided I like them. I take several shots of the entire group, then break them down into individual families. The more people there are, the harder it is to avoid the “class photo” type of shot, but I loved the setting here… I love that we were able to make a big, beautiful art print with this many people. A little slice of life (you probably know by now that I think a perfect look-and-smile image is a little boring and cliche)… I just love families, and a large family is just beautiful and amazing and inspiring. I hope someday to have a huge family picture with all my grandchildren and grown children surrounding me, still getting along and enjoying each others’ company.

I’m soooo behind on blogging! This session was from last July. I’m really want to share (and show that I really do work!) so I’m really going to try my best to catch up. I think part of my problem is wanting to post too many pictures, so blogging takes more time than I can spare. So to remedy the situation, I’m going to limit myself to 1-3 images per session for the time being.

Today, I want to stare at a cute baby, so I’m going to share this one. She was a serious little sweetheart with the most amazing eyes.

That little furrowed brow killllls me. I really want to grab her out of that picture and give her a big squeeze!

I’m pretty sure she’s getting her fair share of squeezes, though.

And a pretty family shot, even with the dogs.

Ok, breaking my new rule already… just one more shot of those gorgeous eyes (with a bonus of sweet wrist and fingers).

I love trees. And people. Especially people in love.

I’m in the heart of busy season right now. In fact, I have slots for only two more regular sessions before the holiday deadline. If you were thinking of booking a session for holiday cards and gifts, you’d better do it now!

But wait… there’s more…

I’ve planned one day for mini-sessions! Friday, November 6. There will be a few morning sessions and a few evening sessions. Let me know if you want in!

Same drill as always: a 15-minute session, 10-12 images to choose from in an online ordering gallery, and one 11×14 (value: $110). I will also offer one 4×6 digital file that you can use for printing your own prints for Christmas cards at a special price.

Mini-Session price: $150.

Did I hear Christmas cards? Yes, I did. Want to see some? Ok…

That’s only a few of them… I have a bunch more.

So…15 minutes. That doesn’t seem like enough time to get decent shots, right? WRONG! While I obviously don’t take as many shots, and the ones I do take are generally more on the formal side than the candid side, some of my favorite images every year come from minis! Here’s a small sample from last May’s minis:

(by the way… hanging the kid upside-down was NOT my idea!)

One more thing. I finished my wedding website! Feel free to take a peek: www.shannonmontez.com

In case you’re looking for my wedding work, I inadvertently deleted it from my website. I’m making some changes, putting up a new website dedicated just to my wedding work. So, rather than trying to fix my overeager mistake, I’ll just have to wait a few days to get it up and running. But in the meantime, I just had to mention that I haven’t given up shooting weddings. I still love it. In fact, here’s an image from a wedding this summer that I’ll be sharing soon.

I think this is my new favorite “first kiss” shot. I love that you can see the people that are supporting this union standing in support. When I look at it, I feel like I’m also standing in support. (which I am…) Dave likely caught this shot, but I can’t remember for sure. He’s become an awesome photographer, and if it wasn’t for insurance and 401k that he gets at his other job, I’d be tempted to bring him on full-time with me.

Work on a new website or newsletter or put up one of the many blog entries I need to put up? I think I’ll just look at this image from my trip to Lake Tahoe and pretend like I’m on vacation for a bit.