Langston family

What fun I had photographing the Langston fam! They’ve added a sweet new babe since the last time I captured them.  Allison said my dream words…”I like how you capture our family just as we are, I don’t care about a bunch of smiling photographs.”  Luckily they are a smiley family, and I was able to capture just that .

best of 2011

2011 was a blessed year! i spent the year learning how to be a mom, and learning how to scale back and balance my photography business…editing will never be the same again with a cute little gal who loves to bang on the keyboard while i attempt to be productive .  below are a few of my favorite images from the year. i’m so thankful to my sweet clients who allowed me to share in their life and love.

don’t miss the slide show at the bottom of the post (there are some crazy awesome photos in that set!) and it took forever to make.

{seriously the cutest baby i’ve ever seen.}

SLIDE SHOW! <——click it

paige {bridal}

neihoff {family}

hannah {graduate}

i wanted to do a little something different for hannah’s graduate session…so we decided to hang books between trees.  she loves reading, and she loves everything vintage!

for the photographer: i used “dreamy”, “warm dreamy”, and “purple haze” from my in the works Art-is action set.  once i’m done tweaking, these will be offered on the site .

clay + bethany e-session

i love business trade-outs! clay is my rad hairstylist and we trade our services. how cool is that?! he is clayton adams, of the clayton adams salon…go check them out! seriously some talented hair artist there.

we had a blast trompin’ around a field. the field looked quite fitting for snakes, but thankfully none attacked us…then we headed to the stock show carnival. so fun!

~photographers: if you like the edits you see here they will soon be offered through Art-is in our new action set!

congratulations clay and bethany! many blessings to you in your new journey together.

a new year!

hope you all had a lovely holiday! we had a grand time with our little harper on her first christmas.

2011 holds many new adventures for us, and we couldn’t be more excited to see what God has in store.  we are launching our church The Paradox Church that jim (my sweet husband) is the lead pastor of…that’s right, i’m a pastors wife and harper is a preacher’s kid, Lord have mercy on us.   and with his transition from my business partner to pastor, his presence with heather essian portrait arts is no longer. which means i’m on my own! so with all of our new changes i will be taking much less portrait sessions this year than the years before.  i’ll take a limited number of sessions each month in order to keep up the quality of work we’ve always strived for, as well as me being able to care for our little harper full time. so if you or someone you know wants to book a session with us please do so as soon as possible so that we can be sure to get you in when you desire.

another new-ish thing is my design business art-is design. for the past 4 years i’ve offered holiday card templates i’ve designed to other professional photographers. i’m pursuing this business even more this year and plan on adding many new product templates, book templates and of course card templates. so if you haven’t already checked out the website please do! we’ll be launching a blog for art-is very soon where i will give marketing tips and will be featuring other photographers. it’s sure to be big fun! “like” our fan page on facebook to keep up with the goings on over at art-is.

check out these two marketing calendars we’ll be adding to art-is website this week:

our harper grace is here!

many of you know that we just welcomed our baby girl, harper grace into the world just five weeks ago! she’s a doll baby and we just can’t get enough of her sweet cheeks . i’ve just received her birth announcements in the mail and once i’m sure most have received them, i’ll post the design here!

it is sooo fun getting to photograph my own baby girl. i was super nervous to photograph her official newborn session because i wasn’t sure how she would do, errrr…maybe more how well i would do! let me tell you, i have a whole new respect and care for my mom clients especially those with a new baby, i had no idea how much effort it takes just to get out of the door with a newborn! shew! of course she did wonderfully and slept the whole way through. however, being mommy and photographer i tuckered out real quick but i love what i was able to capture!

and here she is…our sweet cheeks

i love how small this photo above shows her to be…well, as small as a 9 lb. baby can be

all three of my loves

me and my sweet baby

i dreamed of this photo above. when i was younger i vividly remember taking a photo with my mom, grandma, and great grandma and i’ve always hoped of having the same photo for myself…4 generations!

great grandma’s hands…so special to me.

harper with jim’s dad, jim jr.

with jim’s mom, janey

jax 6 months {baby}

he is such a delight to photograph! so laid back and just sweet as can be

check out the geyer’s maternity and newborn pics: maternity & newborn

naaman {1yr}

this has been my 3rd time to photograph sweet naaman…the first was for the ballentine maternity session. so fun to watch him grow!