I have been interested in taking a newborn workshop for quite some time. Newborn photography is an art that requires a lot of special skills and learning the proper way to pose and handle the babies. I have safely done several newborn sessions in the past, but I felt it was time to improve my posing skills and post-processing. I would really love to see a lot more babies in my studio this year. I NEED my baby fix!!

When I heard about the Simply Fresh Newborn Workshop, I knew this was the workshop I had to attend! The workshop was taught by the very talented Robin Hansen of Picsy Photography and Stephanie Schaefer of Lemonade Stand Photography. So, I flew off to Chicago, which was freezing by the way, to attend the one-day workshop.

The workshop was AMAZING and worth every penny! The girls took us through their normal work flow of a newborn session from prep, posing, styling, shooting angles, camera settings and even post-processing. During the workshop we not only worked with newborns, but we also got instruction on mom and dad shots, sibling and family posing as well. One of my favorite parts of the workshop was the take home posing guide which has proven to be super valuable after getting home. And as a sweet bonus, all the attendees got an awesome bag of goodies from the amazing workshop vendor sponsors (check out my picture below to see all my loot)! To my amazement, the workshop learning did not stop after I got home. Robin and Stephanie have been so great since the workshop ended. All the attendees continue to receive mentoring and feedback from the girls going forward.

Below are some of the shots from behind the scenes taken during the workshop; as well as some edited photos. All the watermarked photos were posed and styled by Robin and Stephanie, and taken and edited by me. If you are thinking about taking a hands on workshop, I highly recommend the Simply Fresh Newborn Workshop!

Who is ready for another MSP giveaway?! This time I wanted to do something fun and involve all of YOU! When editting my clients galleries I occasionally get some really hilarious outtakes. I thought it would be cool to have a contest for the best caption for those photos. So we’ll start with this picture, and if it goes well I will repeat the contest several times throughout the year. Below are the official rules of how to enter to WIN:

PART ONE

1. You must LIKE the Melissa Stewardson Photography (MSP)’s Facebook page if you haven’t done so already – you can do that by clicking HERE and hitting “LIKE” at the top right side of the page!
2. You must post your best caption in the comment section under the photo posted on my Facebook page – Link is here https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=465995863500937&set=a.299163413517517.54260.198251266942066&type=1&theater (Please keep your comments clean. Mean spirited or bad language comments will deleted and disqualified)
3. Mr. MSP (my hubby) will choose his five favorite captions (captions will be given to him annoymously, so it is fair)

PART TWO

1. MSP will make an album post with the top five caption photos and then MSP Facebook fans will vote for their favorite, with a comment or like. A comment will count as two votes and a like as one vote.
2. The picture with the most votes at the end of the contest, WINS!

The prize up for grabs is a $50 gift certificate to be used toward any MSP session, prints or products during 2014! (Sessions already booked or prints already ordered are not eligible.)

PART ONE of the giveaway will run from Tuesday, Feb. 11 until Monday, Feb. 17 at 8:00 PM PST. PART TWO of the giveway will run from Tuesday, Feb, 18 until Saturday, Feb. 22 at 8:00 PM PST. The gift certificate will be mailed, or can be picked up!

GOOD LUCK!!

This giveaway is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

During this busy holiday season I just wanted to take a few minutes to send out a quick thank you note. Without all of you, there is no Melissa Stewardson Photography. I am truly humbled that each of you hired me some time over the past 18 months to take photographs of you and your family! It has been such a pleasure working with each of you and I’ve made some new friends along the way! I am so blessed to do something I love for work and to have awesome clients like YOU!

So from my family to yours, I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas and a 2014 filled with joy!

I hope to be able to work with all of you again next year! : )

xo,

Melissa

Hello friends! The time has come to reveal the winners of my ONE YEAR GIVEAWAY! Thank you to everyone who entered and for always spreading the word about Melissa Stewardson Photography!  And…..drum roll please….the WINNERS ARE:

• First prize of a $125 gift certificate to be used toward any MSP session, prints or products during 2013 and Crazy Organized Clean Up Bucket goes to Heather Overholt Bragg!
• Second prize of a $75 gift certificate to be used toward any MSP session, prints or products during 2013 goes to Shannon Lee!
• Third prize of a goodie bag from KC’s Crocheted Creations and one from The Whimsy Shoppe goes to Jennifer Baker!

Congratulations to the winners! You all will be getting emails or Facebook messages from me about your prizes.  I can’t wait to see how you decide to use your MSP winnings.  Giveaways are so much fun!  Stay connected to Melissa Stewardson Photography Facebook page so you don’t miss out on any updates or specials that I offer in the future.

Here is the scoop on how I got the winner:
1. I used www.random.org to generate a random list of all of the entries, which assigned a number to each entry.
2. I then used the same website to randomly select a number between 1 and 137 for the winners.
3. Below are screen shots of the winner selections!