robin gale cornett (a photographer for babies, children, and families in fort myers, florida) » families

look! (Jan)

robin cornett — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:33:59 +0000

So, last week, I had this delightful family session where everyone was a grownup (or close enough to count). Mainly, that meant that they all listened and did what I asked them, except when they weren’t, which happened more often than you might think. We laughed a lot; at least, I did! I love seeing the other end of the family spectrum–this group includes newlyweds, a college grad starting an exciting job, a high school grad heading for college, and one last high school student to stay home and enjoy being an only child for a little while. I look at how my children are growing and learning and I can’t wait until they are at these ages, so that I can be as proud of them as Jan and Kevin (understandably) are. Well, I can wait, because I don’t want them to be old enough to date and stuff like that, but I know you know what I mean!

To see the pictures, click on the big one or the thumbnails and then you can use the arrow keys or click on prev/next to go through them all.

look! (Alana)

robin cornett — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:59:24 +0000

I had the opportunity this week to revisit Alana and her family… last year I visited them at home. I love getting the chance to see how these babies grow and change, and how the family as a whole grows together. It’s also a lot of fun to visit different places, too! I had a really wonderful time with these guys, despite the heat and the looming storm (both standards for Florida in June!). You will be happy to know that these children are as sweet as they are beautiful–I got big hugs at the end of the evening. That, my friends, is a win in my book.

look! (Lindsay)

robin cornett — Sat, 29 May 2010 02:33:36 +0000

Last week, I had the fun opportunity to spend an evening at the beach with Lindsay Lee, a Sarasota based photographer, and her family. It was great to explore the beach, check out the animals and vegetation (those are called nicker beans, Lindsay, and they use them to make worry beads!), and chat about our businesses. Since we are both mommas who are usually holding the camera, instead of being in the picture, I enjoyed getting to put her on the other side of the camera for once! Thanks so much for coming down, Lindsay!

Check out Lindsay’s baby images on her blog–I really wish I had some of these of my own!

look! (Cherlynn)

robin cornett — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:27:04 +0000

This year’s session with this beautiful family was an exercise in persistence! Not because of Cherlynn’s family, because look at them–gorgeous! No, we’ve had an unusually chilly winter here in southwest Florida and the weather didn’t always cooperate for us very well. Actually, the morning of our session, I woke up to rain (again!), but we decided to wait it out and see if we could have our time together regardless. Well, we did. Aren’t they beautiful? (Oh, wait, I already said that, didn’t I. Apologies for truthful redundancy.)

I’m not normally a big vintage treatment person for my images, but as soon as I saw this first one come up on my computer, I absolutely felt like I wanted it to have a dreamy, timeless kind of feel.

look! (Amy)

robin cornett — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:19:53 +0000

I met this sweet family out on Sanibel Island (if you don’t recognize the landmark on your own) while they were here on vacation. We could have asked for better weather, but the rain held off for us (it did rain on me as I was driving home!). Amy is one of the three beautiful daughters and she is the force behind Big Woods Creative. Check out her work–I love the wedding invites with the birch trees and her favorite images of 2009? Woooowwwww. I think my next vacation will be to go visit her.

Amy (and everyone), thank you so much for inviting me to meet your family!

look! (Angie)

robin cornett — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:46:16 +0000

This adorable family drove down to Florida for an early spring break week and kept on coming down to meet me at the beach! It’s a fun way to remember a family vacation, isn’t it? I sure hope they are enjoying their week–although it’s been gorgeous, it’s been a little chilly for my thin blood (confession: I am typing this wrapped up in a warm blanket). They are from the frozen North (well, maybe not quite that far), so I’m guessing it’s just pleasant for them. Angie and I actually knew each other in college and it was so fun to see her again, and meet her sweet husband, and her beautiful kids! (For bonus points, guess how old her son, who asked me to call him “Knight”, just turned this week.)

My only excuse for not blogging at all in February (gasp!) is illness. And paperwork. And the totally not glamorous side of running your own business. Which entails being sick of paperwork. I shall try not to let it happen again!

look! (jinjer)

robin cornett — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:04:05 +0000

I really enjoyed this home portrait session. It was a fun afternoon with a great family, even with my “assistant” (aka my squirrelly nine year old son) along to “help”. When I saw their awesome front door and the beautiful white dresses, I wanted this shot. When I got it home, it felt like a painting to me, so I processed it accordingly. Isn’t she beautiful? The whole family is just stunning!

look! (cherie)

robin cornett — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:38:57 +0000

I’ve had a bit of a run on older families lately and it’s been fun. I went downtown with this awesome family and explored (and lost my reflector, boo! Note to self: chain reflector to your pants or bag so you’ll know right away if you try to walk off without it!). Being with these guys really made me want to go back out and buy a pair of Converse but I think it would take more than that to make me cool.

This turned out to be one of my favorite shots even though I was specifically told to focus on the “children” (since two of them are taller than me, I get to put that in quotes). Since parents are the foundation of the family, I love to document them, too–their closeness and familiarity is awesome. I loved this shot in black and white, but I have to tell you, the color of Cherie’s eyes is incredible. That version may end up on the facebook page (you are a fan, aren’t you?). Thank you so much, Cherie & co! Loved it!

client slideshows

robin cornett — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:25:14 +0000

My sessions include an online slideshow for every client, which I normally don’t share here on the blog, but am going to today. I have to confess, this is one of the hardest parts of what I do, even though it’s also one of the more exciting parts! For me and for clients, it’s exciting because it marks the end of a lot of work on a session, and it means that I finally get to reveal the images to my client, in a way that is both beautiful and moving.

On the photographer’s end, however, it’s really really hard, because every slideshow is set to music, and one thing you can know about me right up front is that I am not musical. I don’t actually listen to a lot of music, even though I love it, and I have no sense of rhythm, either. Just being real, here! John King of Metta Audio is super musical, though, and he just saved my sorry self, because, get this: he writes music and now sells royalty free music for photographers, and what’s even better, he includes custom timings for ShowitWeb (remember, I said I had no rhythm? Sad, but true!). Thank you, thank you, thank you, John!

So, for the visiting photographers, check out John and his work on my little slideshow. For the potential clients who are visiting, check out Betty’s family, the new and improved version (family, not pictures)! Yes, the gorgeous redhead, Megan, was David’s girlfriend for this session. She is now his fiancée!

playing with pictures

robin cornett — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:21:40 +0000

I recently bought Dirty Pictures from Totally Rad, which is basically a plugin for Photoshop to make it easier to add textures to your images. I don’t normally do a lot of textures on my images, partly because I don’t always see it working, and partly because it’s more time than I want to spend sometimes. Well, a new toy is always an excuse to play, and so I took two of my favorite shots from a recent session and played with them. Of course, playing isn’t fun if you can’t do show and tell, too. What do you think?

My first edit:

Dirty Pictured (Dirtied Picture? What’s the appropriate verb?:

Original (clean and lovely but kind of austere):

Dirtied (I really love how this one warmed up):

I have to say, I really enjoyed the layout and interface of the plugin, and I loved that I could make it render previews of all the textures using the actual image I was working on. It made it super easy to decide right away which textures I was interested in using and which ones I might have to delete from my computer entirely.