family photography

January 9, 2019January 7, 2020

| Christian Family | Decatur IL Family Portrait Session |

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Happy New Year ya’ll! It’s the first SJP blog post of 2020… new year, new decade! Does it feel like a fresh start for you? Does it feel like just another day? I’m a big fan of the ‘blank page’ feeling of the new year. And after busy busy busy season here with fall-Christmas sessions with all you beautiful people I enjoy the solo time in the office to catch my breath and work on the back end of things as well.

I’m excited today to kick things off sharing one of our beautiful class of 2020 models, Alleson’s, family with you! They joined us for our ‘fall’ Limited Edition session this year (you know in the fall that never came, thanks 2019… hence all the beautiful greenery). I will seriously never forget this season when October started at 94* and looked/felt nothing like fall and then we got our first snow before Thanksgiving! #crazy

We’ve had so many of you request early booking this year that I’ve just set our 2020 Limited Edition dates and booking is open now HERE. Our LE sessions are 15 or 30 minutes starting at just $45 and are available 4x a year:

Saturday, February 15th – Morning/Mid-Day In-Studio
Sunday, May 17th – Afternoon On-Location
Saturday, September 12th – Morning/Mid-Day On-Location
Saturday, October 17th – FALL Prime Date (Only 6 Sessions Available)

And coming soon we’ll have a bonus Christmas weekend with both Santa Experience sessions (we have a very special experience planned with Santa this year that’s far more than just a photo session!) as well as themed indoor and outdoor Christmas sets.

September 12, 2017September 8, 2017

| Allen Family | Annual Family Portraits | Summer Decatur, IL |

family portraits, family photography, family photographer, decatur il, decatur, illinois, photographer, central il photographer, central illinois photographer, family, siblings, siblings portraits, annual portraits, Look who’s up on the blog today! I’m so excited to share this beautiful family with you. I’ve had the privilege to photograph Melanie and her girls a few times over the past few years (you can check out last year’s session HERE) and this year we welcomed Chuck and Ethan into the fun.

I’ll be missing Melanie this year as we’ve worked together for the Warrensburg-Latham High School yearbook images for years now but she’s taken a great Librarian job in another district so I won’t be seeing as much of her as usual but wish her good luck in the new job.

I have had so much fun watching Savannah and Sophie grow up so much over the last few years. They have such unique personalities and I always look forward to what we create for them both individually and together. I sort of get excited to think about them flipping through these photos a decade or two from now seeing how much they changed every year.

And these three were SO sweet together. This may have been the first session I jumped WHILE shooting to get that smile on the left (thank God for image stabilization!). We knew going into the session we’d have to watch for forced smiles on Ethan so I had to up the silliness just a bit and worked perfectly!

And, of course, we had to round out the session with some individual combinations. Every family relationship is unique and I love to show not only the whole family but all the little micro relationships too.

I know this will be an exciting year for this family and I cannot wait to see them even more grown up next year!

November 17, 2016November 15, 2016

| Samuel | 9 Months Old Fall Family Portraits |

Do you guys remember this adorable squishy little newborn Samuel? Well he’s definitely not so little anymore! I just had the chance to go home to Jefferson City to photograph his 9 month portraits and we let mommy and daddy join in too.

I cannot say how much I love being a part of this little guy’s first year and watching this family grow. So looking forward to his first birthday portraits which will be here before we know it!

Another perk to having a session back home is I got to shoot at the Runge Nature Center which I haven’t photographed at for years but was a staple location of my younger days.

Be sure to head over to our Facebook Page to give them some love with your comments, likes and shares!

March 4, 2016March 3, 2016

| Starr | Newborn Portraits | Sarah Jane Photography | Jefferson City, MO |

So one of my most favorite things about my job is getting to share in huge milestone moments in my clients lives and getting to watch their families grow and change over the years. I went to high school with Pam and a few years ago her and Doug road tripped it up here to Decatur to have me create their engagement portraits (seriously humbling to have someone willing to drive 4+ hours for me to create their images!). I then had the chance to photograph their beautiful wedding in my home town of Jefferson City, MO and got to do what I don’t get to often and that’s photograph on the capital steps (where I shot some of my very first portraits when starting my business in high school).

Anyways…… fast forward to now and this lovely couple now has an absolutely adorable little boy! And once again I’ve had the honor to photograph a huge milestone in their lives (like HUGE… I totally get this now that we have #babyB in our lives). These two will make fabulous parents and I cannot wait to cuddle this little angel at 4, 8, 12 months and then again for his second birthday (it’s already in the books ya’ll, it’s happening!).

So without further adieu about about we see some newborn cuteness?!?!

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April 8, 2015January 17, 2024

| Miller Family | Annual Family Portraits | Lake Decatur |

I’m thrilled today to share with you another family who I’m honored to say has been with me for a number of years for their family portraits. We started when we were still over in our small west end home where we created family portraits when Grant was just a tiny little thing.

This year I’m excited to say we had a much better day for photos compared to last year’s very cold and extremely windy session day where it was all any of us could do to keep our teeth from chattering.

And for something a bit different this year we held our Limited Edition session date at Nelson Park / Lake Decatur and as these guys are boaters we decided to showcase the lakeside more than the park. Even though our locations are preset for Limited Edition sessions I love that our town has such variety that we can even customize these sessions in small ways by utilizing different areas of the same parks. After all, these are their family portraits and I definitely don’t want them looking just like someone else’s. (Check out Lisa & A.J.’s session just minutes before the Miller’s and the unique looks we created for them at the exact same location!)

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One of my favorite things about the Miller’s sessions is we always create a brand new Christmas card design for them, which gets a little tricky when you’ve designed them for multiple years but check out what we created for them this year.