Rachel Halsey Photography ~ Photo Blog

Yay! I finally get to share another shoot of the most precious little family – the Tolleys!
This time around I am SO happy to finally formally introduce brand new miss Lydia Katherine!

Lydia decided that her birthday would be on April 23rd (which I personally think was a fabulous decision on her part… I’m sure Rach agrees!) and she had a head full of beautiful dark hair and the most perfect little nose… seriously! Look at that cute little thing!

Matt and Rachel, it is such an honor to be able to photograph so many different seasons of your life.
I remember photographing Anna when she was barely walking… and now to see her as a big sister seriously could bring tears to my eyes.
Your family is so precious and I am so thankful for all of you.

Anna, you are an amazing big sister!
Your auntie Abbie pointed out to me that you and Lydia have exactly the same difference in age that she and I have.
That fact makes me SO happy because as most people know, Abbie is one of my best friends in the entire world ;]
She is my cheerleader, my secret keeper, and the person I want to talk to when I’ve had a bad day.
I have no doubt in my mind that you and Lydia will be the very best of friends.
Seeing how much you love your little sister is amazing to me… You will be such a wonderful example for her for so many things!

Congratulations to the Tolley family and I wish all the best for you as you embark on the adventure of being a family of four.
I know that you will do such an amazing job and make a lot of people envious (like really, how is a family this good looking?) ;]

Lots of love to each of you!

Mini Sessions are some of my favorites! It’s a fairly quick, painless (haha), and affordable option to get some quality family photos that you will cherish for the rest of your life.

You can see some of the photos from our fall mini sessions here.

Email me to book your spot – spaces are filling up fast!

rachelhalsey@gmail.com

One of my favorite families is back! Matt, Rachel, Anna, and introducing…. Lydia!
Well, technically Lydia will be gracing us with her undoubtedly adorable presence next month… But I am super excited and can’t wait to meet the newest baby Tolley :]

Rachel and I had been planning this maternity shoot for forever but kept having to reschedule because it would NOT stop snowing! I seriously think it was 3 or 4 times (if not more!) that we scheduled and rescheduled. Oh boy.
That’s New England for you… Is everyone else as ready for summer as I am? ;]
Needless to say, we finally made it happen. And it was wonderful.

We met up in downtown Dover and walked around a bit… It was sunny and a little chilly but we all had a great time.
Rachel is one of those people that just pulls pregnancy off beautifully. She is so adorable and always looks so cute. I know she’s probably the most ready to meet Lydia…. but Rach, I promise – you look AMAZING.

Anna, as always – was a delight and a half. This kid cracks me up. She is so full of personality and has the sweetest manners I’ve ever seen. I’m sure she is going to be such an amazing big sister.

Oh, and we knew it was our lucky day when we made it to Harvey’s right at closing time and they sold us some Petit Fours anyway ;]

Tolley family, thank you again for allowing me to capture your precious family. I can’t wait until Miss Lydia is here and we can take some updated family shots… Maybe it will be warmer then, too ;]

xoxo!

Well, 2012 wasn’t my year for blogging… but what’s new? ;]

As I look back over the past twelve months I am extremely overwhelmed – mostly with extreme gratitude.
2012 brought a lot of new changes… and a lot of things have stayed the same…
I am still working full time while juggling a growing photography business.
I am so excited to think that one day I will be able to devote 100% of my day to my business. This past year has been another year of growth and promise and I’m happy to think that I am one year closer to doing photography full time.

Thank you to my AMAZING friends and family… but especially to my wonderful clients.
I couldn’t even think of following this dream without you… Your patience and understanding are invaluable… and your trust in me is amazing.
As I was looking through my sessions from this year, I was so overwhelmed with thankfulness for the amazing clients I have had the experience of knowing and working for. I look through your photos and I am reminded of memories and relationships – it really does feel like looking through photos of dear friends.
I guess in a way, that’s exactly what it IS.
You have made it possible for me to follow my dream and I am so grateful that I am the one who has gotten to preserve these precious memories for you.

My hope is that years from now, when you or your children or your grandchildren look at these photos of you – they also will be overwhelmed with gratefulness. Gratefulness that there was such an abudence of love – and also that it was important enough to be documented. This gift will live on forever and we will never know what kind of impact it will have.

So thank you again. I wish you all the happiest of New Years and I hope that 2013 brings even more love, laughter, and great memories to you and your loved ones.
I hope that this year will be filled with even more photo sessions… more love, more weddings, more babies, and more family… This life we’ve been given is such a gift.
Let’s document more of the love in our lives so that we can stop time for just a moment…. and we can be thankful.

And now – some of my favorites from the year….

Families:

Couples:

And last but not least, we experienced some pretty amazing weddings in 2012!

Of course, individual blog posts of all these amazing sessions will be coming… some day ;]

Until then, continue keeping up with me by visiting my Facebook Page.

Exciting things are coming… I am already in the process of putting together a plan for another day of mini sessions this winter… I am a firm believer that there should be more photos of families playing in the snow together!
If you are interested in recieving more information about these mini sessions, please email me at rachelhalsey@gmail.com or leave a comment on my Facebook page.

Lots of love to everyone… and a very happy 2013, too!

My dear friend, Matt, is working on a new music project and asked me to take some promo shots for him. Matt is super talented and I was so excited when he asked me to do this shoot for him. I loved working with him because although he already had a vision of what he wanted the shoot to look like, he was very open to all of my suggestions and ideas. In the end, I think this was the perfect collaboration. I can’t wait until I have more info from Matt about this project that I can share with you! Stay tuned!

This post is so overdue (not that any of these posts aren’t overdue!) but I really have been searching for the proper words to use to describe my 2012 birthday weekend. To sum it up in one: amazing. Absolutely amazing.
John surprised me by flying my best friend in the entire world, Aubrey, up to NH for an extra-long weekend. At this point in time, Aubrey and I hadn’t seen each other in nearly a year… and it had been nearly four years since we had lived in the same state (much MUCH too long). John could not have given me a better birthday present. Aubrey and spent those handful of days doing what we do best: talking. We stayed up until the early morning talking about life, love, and other mysteries (haha. extra points to you if you got that Point of Grace reference). We slept in late and then went on adventures around my little town. We held hands and went shopping. We went to the beach and closed our eyes and drank in the salt air. We plotted. We planned.
John took us in to the big city on my actual birthday to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and do some shopping at my all-time favorite place: Anthro. It was an amazing birthday.
I am so thankful to my sweet husband for loving me enough to do something this special to me to help celebrate my twenty-four years on this earth. I’m also super thankful to my BFF, Aubrey, for being so willing and flexible in this plan that very easily could have been nothing more than a “great idea”. You guys made it happen, and I am forever grateful. There are so few things in life that your best friend can’t help you fix… I feel that way especially about Aubrey. She is everything I want to be. She is strong when I’m not, she is determined when I’m discouraged, she is hopeful when I’m feeling hopeless and most importantly – she never lets me give up. She knows my heart and what I want to do with my life and she is so quick to remind me of those things… Even when I have lost sight of them.

I pray every day that I can be as good a friend to her as she is to me. I hope that everyone everywhere gets to experience a friendship like mine and Aubrey’s at some point in their life. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without her.

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

~

This past fall, we decided to offer something a little bit different for those who had contacted me about wanting a shorter photo session for the purpose of Christmas card photo options. Introducing…. the fall mini session! We dedicated an afternoon at Prescott Park in Portsmouth to these fun little shoots… Just 20 minutes each, we promised each family a CD with 15-20 different image options for whatever they’d like – Christmas cards, photo gifts, etc.
The mini sessions were such a huge hit, I’ve decided to try to start offering them each season. I’m not sure we’ll do a winter one (although if I had enough interest, I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to it!) but I am thinking we will most definitely do a spring, summer, and another fall day.

If you would like to be included in our next set of mini sessions, please email me (at) rachelhalsey@gmail.com and I will put you on the list!

And now ~

~The Aube Family

~The Boston Family

~The Carpenter Family

~The Dorais Family

~The Kilbourn Family

~The Roy Family

~ The Audino Family

~ The Norbert Family

This is my second time photographing the lovely Cotter family, and I must say, these kids just somehow keep getting cuter and cuter.
Will and Charlie have the best little boy smiles and the most amazing eyes you’ll ever see. They are so full of energy and excitement and wonder and amazement. As we walked around and looked for places to shoot, I loved watching these brothers as they turned our entire time together in to a lovely adventure.

And then there’s Sara and Dan. Sara is one of those people with one of those smiles. You know the type, right? She always looks beautiful and joyful and the happiness on her face always makes me smile. She is such an amazing mother. You can tell by watching her with her boys for five minutes. She and Dan are doing such a great job as parents… and the two of them together are just so sweet. There is obvious love in this family, and I felt so honored documenting it.

This family is so typical in so many ways…. beautiful kids that are growing so fast you almost can’t see it…. and then you catch a glimpse. A glimpse of the summer days to come and another year down. These days just fly by and are gone so fast. I love mom’s like Sara who make sure to make time for the important act of documenting her life as it is right now. This second. Whole and beautiful and barely resting long enough for her to take it all in.

No worries. That’s what I’m here for:

Shawn and Maranda contacted me about doing family photos of them + their four little ones. After emailing back and forth with Maranda about our session, I absolutely couldn’t wait. Little did I know, these four little ones would be even more precious than I ever could have imagined.
Arilyn is so obviously the big sister – and such a great one. She was such a huge help in getting baby Alexa to smile… and her quiet but oh-so-sweet personality simply shines through in every photo I took of her. She is such a beauty, too… so naturally photogenic and so calming to be around. Her personality actually reminded me a little of my own favorite big sister (cough cough, that’s you Abbie!).
And then there’s Addison. Addie found a special place in my heart… I saw so much of myself as a little girl in her personality. She is so outgoing and such a little sweetheart… by the end of our session, she kept referring to me as “her new friend” and we held hands the whole way back to the car. Melt my heart… this little girl is something special.

Owen is such a little boy amongst these little beauties. Just looking at his sweet little face makes me smile so big. Look at those eyes! I especially loved watching Shawn with Owen as the relationship they already have as father/son is obviously so special.

And then of course there’s Alexa! Aw, I love those baby cheeks and those big baby blue eyes. What a sweetie.
Seriously, this whole family was almost too good to be true. These children are beautiful and happy and such a pleasure to be around. And of course their parents are beautiful and happy and so very loving. It’s hard to be around this family and not smile the whole time. Trust me!
Shawn and Maranda, thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to photograph your family. I loved watching how much you all love each other. Photographing families like yours makes me so excited about having a family of my own one day.

I am already looking forward to our next session and seeing how different everyone looks (especially little Alexa!) as your little ones continue to grow and change.
You are the kind of family that I secretly (or not-so-secretly) hope I get to photograph year after year after year ;]

Lots of love from my home to yours!

I have actually known Sam for many years. He and my brother Andrew have grown up together (we were even practically neighbors!) so seeing Sam at my parents’ house has never been out of the ordinary. Although I haven’t lived at home for many years, I still feel like I got to watch Andrew and his friends grow up. Sam is no exception. Where does the time go?! All the more reason to have your family photographed and do it often, people.

Sam, you have gone from being a fantastic kid to being an even more fantastic guy. You are thoughtful and polite and all around a great guy to be around. I was so honored that you asked me to be the one to take your senior photos!

For anyone who is wondering, we did this shoot at Newcastle Commons on Labor Day and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Sam, his mom Janet, and I had a great time walking around and looking for different types of backgrounds. While we were on the beach, Sam and Janet told me that going to the beach and searching for sea glass together has been a big part of their lives. How fitting that Sam ended up finding some sea glass as we were discussing it!

Okay, enough rambling from me. Enjoy: