For My Niece...

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I recently became an uncle. Yea, uncle Tony. Bad to the bone. Now don't take offense here but I've always thought babies were ugly - especially newborns. They're just weird looking. Well, I still think newborns totally look like aliens, but my niece is becoming a little girl and she is just the most adorable little girl I've ever seen. She freaking loves me - job well done on my part. Newborns are usually terrified of me, but I've managed to make this little girl love me. Can I get a heck yeah?!

Any who, one of the perks of having a brother (the bother being me) who is a photographer and pseudo-designer means unlimited baby photos and awesomely designed birth announcements, birthday invites, thank you cards, etc. When my niece was born, I had never taken any photos of babies before. I had no idea how to approach it. I just started taking pictures the way I knew how and I ended up with some pretty special photos. The first thing I designed for her was a baby shower invitation. I hadn't even met this little girl and I was already working for her.

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This invitation generated a lot of buzz. People were bringing the invite into baby stores as they were buying things for the shower just to show it off. Family and friends kept saying how they've never seen such a detailed baby shower invitation. Again, one of the perks of having me as a bro!

After the baby shower invitation came the birth announcement. My niece and I had a quick little photo shoot for this card - she didn't even have enough power to hold her head up! She was still firmly in the sleeping/pooping all day phase.

Birth-Announcement

After the birth announcement came the hotly anticipated 1st birthday invitation. I had a lot of fun with this one. The photoshoot for this card was the first time I have taken pictures of my niece without my sister there. Obviously, she loves her mama very much. I didn't realize how calm my sister kept her during shoots - but let me tell you, this photo shoot was a nightmare. I managed to get some awesome pictures but it was a huge pain! She was crying in 75% of the pictures. 1 out of 4 isn't bad though. I made it work and we got a nice invitation out of it.

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The latest design from yours truly is the thank you card for my sister (technically from my niece, but lets be real. She's still completely illiterate). I had total freedom to design this card however I saw fit. I took some elements from her birthday invite for the sake of consistency and just ran with it. I knew I wanted to frame the images of her, so I found these great free Photoshop brushes online after a quick Google search. They worked perfectly and were exactly what I was looking for.

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The images from her thank you card are the latest images I've taken of my niece. She had just turned one the week before and they doubled as her one year pictures and pictures for the thank you card. As you can see from the card she is far from the sleeping/pooping phase. She's running around like a mad woman. It's adorable. She started walking at like 9 months and I don't think she's sat down since. It's truly an honor to have her call me uncle.