One Family Two Sessions

It’s been a while since I blogged but here is a family that I really enjoyed photographing. I first met Mom, Dad and son last Fall for a lovely outdoor session which is featured in another blog entry. It was great to revisit with them back in February at their home for a newborn family session with the arrival of their daughter. I combined portraits from both sessions here. I hope they are doing well and enjoying their summer.

Acton child photographer portrait

Acton family portrait

Newborn portrait with sibling

Newborn at home portrait

Late Winter Session

I’m delving into past sessions for the next few blog entries simply because time with clients took my away from posting as much as I would have liked over the last year.

This session from last Winter was such a joy to do. It still remains one of my all time favorite sessions. I do not usually recommend family portraits in studio with younger kids as they find the area very restrictive. It is an even bigger challenge when it’s part of a newborn session. However these kids were so delightful and so engaging that everything just clicked. We got sibling moments, family portraits and newborn images. If kids are very relaxed and comfortable with new people and flashing lights then it can work out great as you see. Mom and dad were also wonderfully relaxed which is a great help when doing studio portraits. I think this baby will almost be one so it seems appropriate to send my birthday wishes via this blog!
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Massachusetts baby photographer

Massachusetts newborn photographer

boston family portrait

boston family photographer

Double Feature

Recently I had the pleasure of working with this lovely family for two sessions. The first was outdoors when the star of the show was their eldest son. The newest addition to the family arrived shortly after and second son was the main attraction in studio. I put together some selections from both sessions here. It’s nice to see the contrast in mood between indoor and outdoor. Beautiful portraits.

Boston family portrait

Concord photographer

Massachusetts family studio portrait

Boston baby portrait

Summer Session

A very nice family to spend time photographing this summer. The little boy was full of smiles and as the Mom told me via email, there were too many good portraits to choose from! Here’s three I picked out and it was difficult to choose.

Boy with bubble

Boston family photographer

Boston baby photographer

Newborn and brother

It’s been a little busy and this blog has been a little neglected – I’ll do my best to play catch up with a few selected sessions before things get really busy in the fall!
This session featured a newborn and big brother, who as you can see obviously showed a lot of love – it’s a delight to capture these early moments of sibling bonding.

Newborn and brother

Newborn black and white

Boston newborn

6 month old baby in studio ~ Boston baby studio photography

This is a studio session from late last year, and what a happy session it was – this little guy was full of smiles. As you can see 6 months is a great age for portraits, the baby can sit and hold his head up easily and there is scope for lots of interaction. All in all a wonderful session with plenty of choices for a holiday card!

baby studio Boston

Baby Acton studio

Mother and baby studio Boston




Jane McDonagh Photography is an award winning portrait studio with the photographer specializing in children, baby, family and seniors portraiture. Photographing your child in natural light on location and with studio lights at the West Concord studio. Serving the Littleton, Acton, Westford, Carlisle, Concord, Groton, Arlington, Sudbury, Lexington, Lincoln, Newton, Leominster, Fitchburg, Wellesley, Needham, Weston, Wayland, Andover, Arlington, Bolton, Boxborough and MetroWest Boston MA areas. Children’s photographer, baby photographer, senior portraits, newborn photographer, and family photographer.

Newborn twins in studio

Beautiful twins came to my studio back in late January. This was the second time around for newborn photos for this Mom and I am very happy she asked me again to take her babies portraits. We had to cancel the original session because of snow. The booking was rescheduled on another day that also ushered in another load of snow. Fortunately we decided to plan an earlier date before the bad weather was forecast. Good call! If we hadn’t done that the date would have been pushed out beyond the best time period for newborn portraits and it would have been difficult to settle the babies. Everything worked out great and we got some delightful portraits!

boston baby photographer

mother with baby twins

baby twins

boston twins portrait photographer

Best Family Photographer in Boston

I was very pleased to find that last month Jane McDonagh Photography was honored as one of the top 5 family photographers in Boston on the CBS site.
It is always a pleasure to be so recognized when there are so many photographers in the area, but what was particularly satisfying was the comment “her photography has a classic, tasteful eye” because this is what I like to think makes my work stand out. I believe the strength of my work has always been the timeless quality of a classic composition with perfect lighting which is then subtly and artfully polished with the sophisticated use of professional photo editing tools. The results are images of elegance whose apparent simplicity belie the work and experience required to create them. I know I am lucky to get the feedback of clients who discern this quality and appreciate great art and tell me this is why they chose me to take their family portraits, but it is gratifying that the work put into crafting these images is also more widely recognized in an online publication.

CBS best Boston family photographer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile this record breaking winter goes on but it hasn’t stopped clients from braving the elements to visit my studio – it has been the busiest start to the year I’ve ever had and I will soon start blogging some of the recent lovely sessions. In the meantime I was browsing through some old images and this one caught my attention as the perfect antidote to the piles of snow surrounding us at the moment. The dreamlike quality of this image certainly makes me dream of flowers in Spring!

Picking spring flowers

What goes into a digital session set

This was a lovely session held just before Halloween. Everything fell into place perfectly. Many sessions this past Fall have been rather weather challenged to put it mildly. This one was no exception. When we started the wind was gusting and the rain clouds were looming. Fortunately the dark clouds moved away and the breeze dropped. Dad even managed to arrive early from work and we got him into more family portraits than planned.

I am blogging this session now because I am wrapping up my work on the family’s order. The family had a hard time selecting prints because there were so many choices. (That happens a lot. It is always my aim to produce work that makes my clients spoiled for choice!) In the end the family opted for the session set of files. This is really a great choice.

Digital file session sets require a lot of work. Some clients may only want to own images to view on a computer screen but that’s not the product we sell. All our images whilst looking great on the computer are perfected for printing as portraits.

I am meticulous with all my orders but digital file sets are especially labor intensive due to the number of images that need to be prepared. It takes many hours of work to individually prepare the 20+ portraits. Sure, I could cut corners and save time by running automated Photoshop actions on the entire group of images. I don’t do that. I prepare each portrait as if it is going to be printed and framed as a 10×8. This includes various touch ups, drool removal on babies, stray hairs, background distractions to name a few. I also sharpen and then convert each file to black and white. Clients get both a color and black and white portrait for each image. I could run a black and white converter on all the images at once to save time but again I don’t do that. Each image is unique and one type of black and white conversion does not work for all portraits, the background may require different tones and faces require precisely the correct amount of contrast for best results. If a client opts to purchase a larger file to be printed for wall portraits another layer of preparation is required to ensure they look great when printed for wall display. In the end my clients are given file sets that can remain as files on the computer, as a special keepsake or can be used to make their own high quality print portraits, now or in the future. Call me old fashioned but for me and my photography, it still comes down to creating a beautiful printed portrait.

And so all that is left of this order is for the mini accordions to arrive back from the lab and it will be shipping out …

Girl with red flowers

Boston family photographer

Sisters portrait

Dad and daughter

Back in the studio

As is always the case at this time of year I have been doing many outdoor sessions, this is my busiest time of year and much as I enjoy doing outdoor work at our many local wonderful locations I am quite looking forward to the more frequent studio sessions that the colder weather brings. Here’s a selection of portraits from a recent newborn studio session of a local family from Concord. These three sisters together were so delightful. I am looking forward to mailing out this portrait and digital file order within the next few days.

Sisters and baby

boston baby portrait

Sisters in studio