I had mentioned previously that we had shipped our kids off to a friend’s house while Alex was busy being born. It just so happens that that friend is the best photographer in the world, and we had already arranged for her to take pictures of Alex in the hospital. So it worked out perfectly that she was able to capture the kids meeting Alex for the first time!

This is just a sample of the pictures, but I don’t think I need to tell you how pleased we are with them because you can see them for yourself. They are so wonderful, and such a great documentation of that day.

Sara and I take a lot of pictures, and we know our way around a camera. But there is absolutely no contest between what we do and what Erielle does.

Erielle also took family portraits of us not too long ago. I posted these on facebook, but not on the blog. What is interesting to me is that these pictures are a totally different style than the pictures of Alex. I like how Erielle is able to capture more than just the image. She really puts the *emotion* into the picture. You can see the excitement as the kids go to the hospital, and the tenderness as they meet Alex for the first time. In the family portraits you can just see Ollie’s goofiness, or Evelyn’s sweetness, or just some sort of something that shows the soul of our family.

You just don’t get that sitting in a JC Penny’s.

When Sara and I got married, we spent a significant portion of our wedding budget on our photographer, because it was so important to us. To me, pictures are so much more than a souvenir: a good photo is a memory and a work of art all rolled up in one. It’s a window into that moment in your life, but a window opens out onto something much, much larger. It’s not just documentation that you’ve been there, but it’s all of the sights and sounds and thoughts and feelings and everything that lead up to that one moment in time. Well worth spending money to do it right.

I can’t tell you the number of compliments we’ve gotten on these pictures. More than one person has pulled me aside to tell me how much they enjoyed them, including one person who said, “These are the best family portraits I have ever seen.” (I’m biased towards the subject matter, but still!)

Who wouldn’t want to hang those on their wall?

Here are some of my favorites (you can see many more pictures of us on Erielle’s photo blog here)I would unabashedly recommend Erielle Bakkum Photography to anyone looking to get photographs taken, of babies or of anything else. She is wonderful to work with, and knows how to get the most of out kids. She knows how to frame a shot, she knows how to make the camera do what she wants it to do, and she knows how to edit the pictures afterwards. The results, quite frankly, speak for themselves.