First Birthday Cake Smash Photoshoot with Ava

Talitha and James heard about me through their friends, Jen and Eric, who they met at an NCT group.

Jen and Eric booked in with me for the Baby’s First Year package, and recently came to my Bicester studio for the last of their three shoots with me: a first birthday cake smash photoshoot for their baby boy.

When Jen and Eric shared the photos with their friends, Talitha got in contact to book Ava in.

Ava turned 1 in August just after she’d just started nursery.

Unfortunately she picked up an illness straight away which meant mum and dad had to cancel her first birthday party, and so they didn’t get any photos marking that milestone.

In addition, now mum and dad are both back to work full-time, they’ve noticed they aren’t capturing nearly as many photos of Ava as when Talitha was on maternity leave, something I was keen to rectify during their photoshoot with me!

Ava is an incredibly happy little toddler who is full of beans: she loves being tickled and chased, and particularly enjoys running away from her mum and dad (presumably because she gets chased again!).

One of Talitha and James’ favourite moments so far took place the day before their photoshoot with me.

They had just decorated the Christmas tree with lights and baubles, and led Ava into the living room to see it.

“Wow!” she said, in her perfectly melodic voice, before stepping forward to touch and study the tree.

If the amount she’s enjoyed the tree is any sign, then she’s going to be absolutely thrilled with the mini kitchen her parents have got her for Christmas!

James reckons Ava has inherited his impatience but her mum’s persistence.

When Ava can’t get a puzzle piece in place straight away, she sometimes gets frustrated and throws the piece down.

But when it came to learning how to crawl and walk, she’s shown a willingness to keep trying again and again until she masters each skill.

She’s now learning how to climb, and is almost able to pull herself up on the family’s sofa.

Ava’s endless energy and high speed mobility means it’s been hard to get photos of her or with her at the moment, and those that they do capture get definitely count as action shots!

All this means that the family were overdue for a professional photoshoot, and I had two main goals for our session: capturing Ava’s character and personality, and creating a lovely image of the family together to go up on the wall.

I think we achieved those aims and more, with Ava our perfect little model throughout! 🙂

“Sarah worked with us on a first birthday photoshoot. Neither me nor my husband particularly like having our photo taken, and our 15 month old daughter never stays still – so it’s almost impossible to get a good picture of the 3 of us normally. Sarah was such a pleasure to work with, she gave us plenty of guidance before the shoot and gave me a lot of advice about outfits for the day. On the day she was so great with Ava, made us all feel very welcome and comfortable in the studio and when we saw the final photos, just one week later – wow! It was actually quite emotional seeing them, Sarah did such a great job of capturing our personalities and the photos are also so natural which was very important to me. I’m sure we’ll be back for future photography, I’d recommend Sarah to anyone.”

Talitha, first birthday cake smash photoshoot client from Buckingham, Buckinghamshire

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If you’d like to book your child’s first birthday cake smash photoshoot, or if you have any questions about family photography with me, please get in contact.

Sarah Plater LMPA is an award-winning, qualified, professional family portrait photographer based in Bicester, Oxfordshire. She is the Master Photographers Association Newborn Photographer of the Year 2019 for the Central Region (covering Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire).