Announcing Ella Bella Photography’s 2009 Portrait of the Year Awards!

It’s that time!! We picked out 20 of our favorite portraits from all of 2009 (narrowing down 100’s of photos to only 20 is so hard to do!) - there are so many more that we wanted to choose but alas, only the 20 portraits made the cut!) If you made the nominations list - Congratulations!

Now for the best part!! The 1st place prize winner will receive a 16×20 gallery wrapped canvas of a portrait of their choosing from their 2009 session. The 2nd place winner will receive a 11×14 mounted print with linen finish from their 2009 session. The 3rd place winner will receive a 8×10 mounted print from their 2009 session with a desk easel frame!

To Vote: All you have to do is leave a comment below with the number of your favorite image. We will do the contest until Sunday, February 7th at midnight and the winner will be announced on Wednesday, Feb 10th on this blog! The portrait with the most votes wins 1st place! 2nd place goes to the portait with the second most votes and so on! 3 prizes total - 1st, 2nd, 3rd place!

Spread the word! You can have as many of your friends and family vote, only one vote per person!! (Extra votes by the same person (tracked by IP address) will not count and may disqualify you so please don’t cheat!)

Now get voting!!

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Itching for your baby fix? Coming at ya times 2 today!! These sweet peas are identically adorable in every way… Enjoy!

Smile! A super early sneak peek from my 9 month holiday photo session with the Jones family quints! Everyone who follows my blog knows who these famous babies are! (And if you don’t go here!) They are now 9 months old and crawling!! I have many more sneak peeks to share once I get them edited!! It was an awesome session, to say the least! Thank you to my friend, Rachel C, for her fine baby wrangling talent!

I fell in love with these identical twin newborn boys this week - they were absolute angels and slept through their entire session! Just a joy to work with!! Enjoy your sneak peak, “B” family - you are blessed!!

This week I met these beautiful identical twin baby girls for their long-awaited newborn photo session! They are just as cute and chubby as can be, hard to believe that they were born extremely premature. Little miracles for sure. They made us work extra hard for these precious sleeping shots. I’m going back in a couple more weeks for more portraits of these precious babies, so be sure to check back around the end of the month for more from this duo! Enjoy your sneak peek, “D” family!

I’m so excited to share my first newborn twin session ever!! I’ve had quintuplets but never twins! I’ve actually had not one, but TWO newborn twin sessions this week! And one more on the books later this month!!! I have to pinch myself because it’s a dream come true for me!!!

Meet L’s twin boys, a little over a week old. They were so sweet and sleepy, precious little angels!

I posted a few more sneak peeks on my Facebook page too! Be sure to check it out!

Just sharing one more from the quints group photo session this week!

I can’t get enough of these 5 sweet babies! Today I made another visit to the “J” family and their adorable newborn quintuplets (now 3.5 months old from their date of birth). I wanted to get better group portraits of them because their first newborn session with me was focused on the individual portraits. I just have one to share right now. Look at that big smile on baby #5!!! More sneak peeks coming this weekend!!!

One more… ((heart))

My favorite trio is turning 3 years old this weekend and last weekend they made the trip to Austin for a photo session with me! It was a lot of fun chasing them around the park, asking them questions about life as a three year old, and watching the excitement in each of their eyes over selecting their favorite gummy bear treat at the end of the session. Their 3 month old baby brother was super adorable and full of smiles too! I hope you enjoy your sneak peek, “G” family! (We’ll have to stop by your house on our way to Destin this summer so you can meet my boys!)

I asked them to show me how they are on their fingers…

I have been following the Jones quintuplets blog for many months. They are an amazing Christian family with a beautiful 4 year old daughter and now the proud parents of five adorable babies. Four baby girls and one bouncing baby boy. Born on January 16, 2009, they all spent significant time in the NICU and began coming home one by one in March. The 5th baby came home a few days ago on Saturday, April 18th. The quints “newborn” (3 month old) session took place a couple days later. It was a blast to have an opportunity to photograph these adorable babies! I bought along my photographer friend, Kristen Moore, to assist me. She was a fabulous help! Each baby had a little one-on-one time with me for their individual portraits and then we attempted the group portraits at the end. By the end of our 3 hour session, the babies and their big sister were ready to be left alone and all of us grown-ups were ready for a shower and a nap! But the end result made it worth it all… Enjoy your sneak peek, “J” family!

Here they are in birth order (L to R - First born to last):

And one sneak peek of the whole “J” family together!