Austin Family and Children Photographer | Magan's Lens » Austin Family and Children Photographer, Magan Blasig

Leslie pondered several places for their Christmas photos this year. Ultimately, we chose to go to the Whole Foods Ice Skating Rink downtown. Here’s a fun tidbit: I’ve never been ice skating. Every time it’s been planned, something has fallen through. I was a little worried about me falling and busting my bum on the ice, but everything worked out just nicely as I stayed on the sidelines, stood on benches, and laid on the floor near the rink entrance. [PS: we went just after they opened and there were very few people to have to crop out of the photos. Yay!]

{Another sidenote: I’m doing this blog differently than the others. No slideshow. I did layouts with their photos to show a sequence of events or different fun things that happened, so you’ll have to scroll down…}

First up is a little location information. I like the Gingerbread addition on the glass.

Then we did a series of photos where Derryk and Leslie skated toward me. I liked these shots as they prepped to do so:

There were a lot of beautiful moments like this. (Look at those great smiles.)

We tried some really ballerina-esque shots, resulting in these:

Leslie really got in touch with her inner-ballerina. [Do you see her blue eyes? Aren't they awesome!?]

We got a little more serious, and tried some poses. Check out the position of Derryk’s ankle in the left photo (looks a little painful):

I love the way the blue of Leslie’s shirt pops out of the photos…

…but just for fun, I played with black and white as well. I love the contrast, and I LOVE Leslie’s expression on the right photo.

There always has to be a classic feet shot. This one is special since it’s in skates!

I have the prettiest pregnant lady you ever did see for you to meet…and her counterpart, but really… women are just so beautiful when they’re pregnant. Mercedes and Mike were referred to me by the Garcia family. Angelica and Mike are siblings… can you tell? I think they’re all something pretty special.

Mercedes is this bundle of overflowing personality. I love it. She’s got all this spunk and I think she’s just gorgeous. She works at Milk + Honey Spa at the Warehouse District on 2nd Street. I’ve been checkin’ out their website… wondering if Dustyn will be ever so nice and treat me to a mani/pedi there [*wink, wink*] . We headed to the magnificient, historic Driskill Hotel downtown for their session. They also wanted Christmas-y pictures to include in their Christmas cards this year. Mercedes even brought along a copy of their card for me to see to make sure we captured the perfect picture to compliment the card. (How thoughtful!)

The Driskill was so awesome. Their decorations were put up everywhere. Perfect tree downstairs, front and center. Secondary tree upstairs with a great backdrop. Beautiful garland and ornaments decorating the banisters on the stairs. This is going to sound so geeky, but I’m going to let the architecture school girl come out of me for a minute. In architecture, it takes a LOT to do symmetry really well without it being boring. I always struggled with it in school and then I just learned to love asymmetry [true story].  I loved how symmetrical and architectural this building was. Some of the shots we got of the tree are even better because the architecture enforces rhythm, balance, and forces a perspective that leads your eye directly to Mercedes and Mike.. the true subjects of the photos. [Stepping out of architecture world now}

We had a ton of fun playing around the hotel. We tried probably every shot that we could without calling attention to the ourselves so we wouldn’t be kicked out. Thank you, Mike and Mercedes for being SO wonderful and cooperative. You are such beautiful people. I’m so excited for your little baby to be here in April!  Congratulations!

Contact Magan | View Favorite Photos | Read Reviews | Follow on Twitter | Catch up on Facebook