We just switched to a fancier new blog. If you’ve been following us please update to the new url: www.modernkidsblog.com. Please stay in touch!

I love this family and have had the pleasure of shoothing them many times. You may remember Henry + Fia featured in the Dante Beatrix catalogue last year. They’ve grown up so much! Anyways, here’s a quick image from their shoot this past weekend. It was a boys vs. girls chickenfight. I was rooting for the girls!

Heres’s a preview of a shoot I will have completed next week. This little guy reminded me how much fun the 7-10 month time is for a baby. They are so cute and happy and full of smiles! Did you happen to see his tiny little teeth poking through. How cute?!

Thanks to Maria, Andy, and Mateo for a fun afternoon. Oh and thanks to Mariana as well, my lovely assistant! More from this shoot coming soon!

Many of you already know we do proof books. Perhaps you’ve gotten one yourself! I love books of all kinds and proof books are great because it’s a nice way to reference imagery from your shoot not to mention being fun to share with family and friends. Right now I use blurb.com, but I’m prototyping a new type of proof book with a company that will launch in the fall. The company is called Bonté Books and it’s near and dear to my heart! (they don’t even have a site yet so I’m linking you to the twitter account) and basically I can do anything I want! I’ve got a bunch of ideas but would love your feedback if 1) you’ve already received one of my proof books, 2) you’re another photographer with an opinion/idea/suggestion 3) you’re just opinionated on this type of thing. Any suggestions out there? If so, post a comment  here or drop me a line via email: hello[at]modernkidsphoto[dot]com.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts…and if you recognize your child’s name in the photos below your proof book is already out the door! Woohoo!!

So it has been a crazy, crazy year so far. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been awesome and I am so thankful for all the wonderful families who found me, hired me, made me feel like a million bucks during their shoots, and showered me with lots of lovely comments after their shoot, and still keep in touch (which is the best part). Hands down, all of the incredible families I’ve met over the last year is the absolute best part of my job, just ask my husband. I’m always talking to him about “how baby Mateo has the best smile” and “little Sabine was so cute with her dad and the elf” and “you should have seen how handsome Dashiell has become” and “little Lauren totally tackled me during our shoot” etc, etc. It drives him nuts because he doesn’t know any of you. Anyways, I digress a bit but the important part here is that I forgot to tell you something pretty important:

I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO TELL YOU THAT I GOT A BRAND-NEW NAME AND LOGO! Yup, I forgot to tell you that. How embarrassing. If you’re on my mailing list and got my last newsletter you know this but if you’re just on the blog and noticed a new logo you probably think I’m crazy or someone took over my business or both. Despite the lateness of this announcement I am still so excited to introduce Modern Kids Photography.

The fancy new name really just means that we are focused on making meaningful and modern imagery of kids and families. That’s not much different than what Sarah Wert Photography was doing, it’s just more clear and a little more buttoned up. My dream is to hire more talented photographers across the country to help make meaningful, modern imagery for families everywhere and with some luck and hard-work this year it will happen. By the way, thanks to the excellent design skills of Scott at wearefof.com. He designed the logo of one of my fav photographers, Amelia Lyon and I was super excited to work with him.

Please forgive the late announcement and make sure to stay tuned here or to twitter for more updates on what I/we are doing. Thank you again to all of the wonderful families who made this growth possible. You have enabled me to do something I love and that’s worth all the money in the world (ok well maybe not 10 million dollars but close)!

Enjoy your summer! Stay tuned for a few portrait posts!

xoxo,

Sarah

Did I mention we’re giving little promos away on twitter? Follow us to be sure not to miss anything: twitter.com/modernkids

I have been in wedding mode over the last month, during wedding season I end up doing a few. I promise to share some recent portrait sessions including baby Madison’s 100th day, little Caleb, baby Sabine, and more. In the meantime, enjoy a few images from this weekend’s wedding outside of Baltimore, MD.

My beautiful cousin Emily married her first love and boyfriend of eight years! I think they were dating in the 5th grade or something crazy like that. The wedding was on an amazing farm owned by the garden editor of the New York Times. It was such a lovely day including delicious fare grown (mostly) by the groom and excellent friends and family. Strong thunderstorms made their way through much of the surrounding towns but we were spared thankfully.

I shot this wedding with my incredibly talented mother who has been shooting for her entire adult life. She is the real deal. More on her soon. I love working with her and we make a great team.

Thanks to Emily + Greg for just being so sweet and awesome. We love you and couldn’t be more happy for you!

Stay tuned for more images from E+G’s wedding, my little bros wedding (can’t wait to share this) and more portrait sessions soon!

Yay! We are excited to be featured on Thatisfabulous.com. Thanks to Janet & Mary for thinking Modern Kids is fabulous (we think you are too)! They picked one of our favorite images of Ruby & Simon! Check out the article by clicking here.

One of my favorite shoots all summer was a wedding in the gorgeous Russian River Valley here in Northern California. I love photographing weddings and I actually do a few every year (believe it or not). The bride and groom hired me because they were hosting so many kids and families, not to mention their own adorable girls.

The location was just stunning; discreetly tucked away in the mountains west of the Russian River. The guests, the kids, and the bride and groom were all lovely. It was definitely the best kind of wedding.

Thank you to Svetlana and Daniel for inviting me to be a part of their celebration. It was a pleasure! Enjoy my favorites from the day.

I am always so impressed and amazed by parents of twins. Most of the time I assume there will be twice the chaos when I arrive for the newborn shoots but invariably I am proven wrong. This was the case when I arrived at Eugine and Edward’s home in the Haight here in San Francisco. It was quite the opposite of chaos. The babies were happy, well fed, and quite adorable.

Thanks to Eugine, Ed, the twins, and her lovely family for such a fun afternoon of shooting! Enjoy the slideshow below…more of my favorites to come.

We had so much fun photographing a wedding this past Sunday. Amazing location, tons and tons of adorable kids, lively guests, and one lovely couple…need I say more? Below is our slideshow, more of my favorite images to come soon…

A big congratulations and thank you goes to Svetlana, Daniel, and their two adorable girls! Enjoy the slideshow:

A few weeks ago I was in Chicago for some shoots as well as to visit some old friends. Although the weather was less-than-stellar and my flight schedule managed to mess up one of my shoots (sorry Caroline!), I managed to have a ton of fun in a city that has changed a lot since I left in 2006.

One of the best parts of the trip was visiting one of my favorite people in the entire world: Bailey O.! Bailey and I worked together at Getty Images (with lots of other awesome people, btw). Not to be out-shined, her husband Pat is also awesome and I was so excited early this year when they welcomed their daughter Libby. Actually, it took all I could muster not to hop on a flight to see baby Libby sooner.

While we didn’t have much time or cooperative weather for a full session I did managed to exploit what little light we did have for a few shots of Libby. I wish I lived 2,000 miles closer to her because she is the most wonderful little girl. She’s so happy, full of smiles, and has such a wonderful little light in her! Enjoy a few selects from our mini-shoot.

Bailey, Pat, & Libby: it was so fantastic to see you guys! Now it’s your turn to visit us in San Francisco!

Sarah

I’m processing most of the week and wanted to share a quick image. This is an image from the wedding my assistant Haiete and I photographed on Sunday. It was a lovely wedding in a really incredible part of the world (tucked inside the mountains near the Russian River, here in Northern California). It felt like there were more kids than adults. This is an image of one of the little guests hiding behind a big red balloon. More to come from this wedding when I’m finished! I need more coffee to get through all the processing this week!

We love going on location with families. We’ve photographed in diverse locations all over the country; from dusty roads and hikes through the woods to beaches and urban landscapes. Recently, one of my photo assistants, Sara and I photographed a very fun family in the Mission District here in San Francisco. Most local photo-geeks (like me) will recognize our first stop, Clarion Alley. This alley is famous for its brightly colored murals done by both students and artists. You can read more about it here. If you’re not from SF, this is a must for your next visit. Make sure to get some mexican food and margaritas after you’re done photographing the alley!

I was delighted when Cynthia, Mike, and their 2 yr. old daughter, Chloe showed up for their shoot. Did I mention this was a family and belly shoot combined? Their style was perfect for the bright colors and vibe of the Mission. After our walk down Clarion Alley we walked a few short blocks to Bi-Rite Creamery (one of my all-time fav spots for ice-cream) and then made our way to Dolores Park for more casual shooting. Altogether, it was one of the most colorful shoots all year! Chloe, our youngest subject, was a tiny bit shy to start but warmed up quickly!

Thanks to Mike, Cynthia, and especially Chloe for the very fun shoot! We are looking forward to the newborn shoot in another month or so. Below are a few of my favorites as well as the slideshow! Enjoy!

Whoa! Watch out, we’re actually posting to the blog! Over the past several months we have had so many fun shoots! I think we’ll be working backwards on posting starting with shoots we’ve just finished.

That said, I recently had a very fun morning spent with two sisters aged 3 1/2 and 2! Little Ms. Lily & Lauren were a total joy to photograph. They were crazy and fun but took direction like real pros. I especially loved Lily’s amazingly long eyelashes and independent spirit! Her sister, Lauren/mommy look-alike had the most adorable haircut and incredibly contagious smile! At one point I got tackled by Lauren but managed to finish the shoot. Take a look at their slideshow and some of my favorites from their shoot below.

A big thanks to the Higgins Family for such a fun morning!

I apologize for the lapse in blog posts. Someone turned the faucet on and we got extremely busy; from new babies, big kids, commercial shoots, and more! I can hardly believe that we haven’t shared anything for two months! We met so many fun families during that time. I promise to start posting new stuff soon.

In the meantime, our busy schedule is much more suitable to twitter. If you really need to keep tabs on us, check us out here: twitter.com/modernkids. We’re announcing lots of fun things over there like our workshop dates, new shoots, and funny little anecdotes from ours days photographing the super-awesome families of the Bay Area. We hope to see you there.

Finally, we’ve been growing (read busting at the seems) so it seemed appropriate to give the portrait biz a much fancier name than plain old Sarah Wert. We’re now called Modern Kids Photography and we have a website and new logo coming very soon. Ok, if you’re impatient like me, you can preview it here: http://www.modernkidsphoto.com

Stay in touch for some very exciting updates.

xoxo,

S.