Book your holiday session between now, October and December 10, 2013 and choose either a mini family, maternity, baby, child portrait or a mini HOWLiday portrait session with your furry friend. You will get festive and fabulous holiday cards or a holiday gift for grandma!
The Mini Holiday Portrait Session Includes:
Price: $197
30 minute studio portrait session with Mary Ann Halpin
25 poses
viewing/ordering session immediately after photo session
25 holiday cards with envelopes
Several Card Templates to choose from!
Book Now!
Space is limited!
maryann@maryannhalpin.com or 323-874-8500
Or Come for a Mini HOWLiday Holiday Session
With your furry friend!
The Mini HOWLiday Portrait Session Includes:
Price: $197
30 minute studio portrait session
with Mary Ann Halpin
25 poses
viewing/ordering session immediately after photo session
The second location we went to on the Gather the Creative Women Mountain Retreat was in the woods of Pine Mountain in what we call the Circle of Gratitude. Our local pregnant Mom-to-Be was Kristin. She was a dream to photograph. Here is the a few of the images I photographed of her. The women on my photo retreat were overwhelmed with her relaxed lyrical posing. She was lovely to work with and inspired all of our creativity.
As a portrait photographer, I am used to being in the studio. I am really enjoying environmental portraits! Leading and teaching on this retreat has been a great creative renewal for me as well.
Getting with women to meditate, visualize and go on location to photograph a medicine woman is thrilling! We journeyed out to Soda Lake about an hours drive from our retreat in Pine Mountain. Soda Lake is a shallow, ephemeral, alkaliendorheic lake in the Carrizo Plain in southeastern San Luis Obispo County, California. The lake is located on the southwest side of the northern Carrizo Plain, 103 km (64.0 miles) east of San Luis Obispo. To learn more about it go to this link: Soda Lake.
SunJay is a medicine woman, yoga teacher, artist and musician. When I asked her to model for our photo retreat, I knew she would be amazing and bring a true spirit to the photographers.
Tonight after a sumptuous dinner prepared by Chef Joe, photographer Izumi Tanaka will present a slide show of her photography and speak about the passion she has for her art.
Here are some images I took of her. What fun it was and truly inspiring in such an interesting location.
My first session creating my new passion project began with a lovely couple Kyla and Wyatt and their beautiful four month old baby boy. I felt a sacredness in photography Kyla with baby in arms feeding on her breast. I started the first shot with window light having her gaze out the window thinking about her profound roll as a mother. It makes me tear up to know what women are capable of doing. With the ability to nurture children just as Mother Earth nurtures us, is a stunning role to be given in this world of turmoil.
I journal everyday to ask myself why I am doing whatever project I have chosen. The answers unfold as I walk the path of each project. Where will it lead me? Who will I meet along the way to mirror a momentary transformation in both of our lives. The stories from women on the phone or when I meet them in person are profoundly magical. I feel blessed, once again, to embark on another creative journey.
This is one of my favorite portraits from the session. Although, I will be using another portrait for the gallery show and I want that to be a surprise!
To all my passionate women photographers! Join me for an amazing creative retreat in the mountains above Los Angeles, September 18-22, 2013. For information and to sign up, http://maryannhalpinretreats.com/. When you register now, get $100 discount by adding the code: creative
When I get what I call a "download" there is no stopping me. It's this energy where I feel I must move forward with a photographic project with wild abandonment. It drives my husband Joe crazy as he wants me to approach project with logic and business smarts like creating a business plan. I know he's right but I have no time to stop to do that and I know that my projects will always get funded. After four photo/essay books, I have found that to be so. However, it hasn't been without blood, sweat, tears and nail biting!
Now I feel called to do a project that honors women, mom's that are passionate about breastfeeding their children. It's a hot topic and I am determined to follow my bliss and create art that honors the notion that mom's can be sensual, beautiful, nurturing and magical in their passion to feed their child.
In the past I have been commissioned to do pregnant portraits and then the new mom's come back for the baby portraits. While doing the portraits I usually ask if they want a nursing portrait. Many of the mom's say yes enthusiastically.
So if you know of any mom's that are breastfeeding and are passionate and willing to participate in this groundbreaking project, please have them contact my studio asap.
It is starting as a traveling exhibit and then possible a photo/essay book. I will be searching out a non-profit organization that works with women in need in this particular area.
I love when my creative juices are flowing in a big bodacious beautiful way!
Also, in celebration of the miracle of life, I have created this slideshow of my maternity and new
born portraits from over the last few years. It amazes me what a woman's body can do. It is really all such a miracle to witness.
I have never been pregnant and it's ironic that one of the first photo/essay books featuring pregnant portraits is one that I created back in 1997. That was around the time I was trying to conceive but found out it would not be easy. Half way through creating this five year photo/essay project, I realized I could conceive a child without doing in vitro fertilization. It wasn't something I wanted to do. So doing this project was a very cathartic experience and one that I would never have missed. It led me to creating this portrait business where I am honored to create artistic pieces for women and their families to put on their wall as art.
Part of my business logo line is "Celebrate Your Life as Art." I feel very strongly about not having art that matches your couch. How amazing to have fine art portraits printed on canvas, acrylic or medal gracing the walls of your home to view everyday of your life and hand down to the next generation!
I'm very very grateful to all the women who gave me the honor and priveledge to caputure their beautiful swollen body full of baby in a fine art portrait. It has been a wonderful journey.
It's been almost 17 years since Pregnant Goddesshood: A Celebration of Life, was released in 1997. Amazingly, it was launched into the media as a very controversial book. Many magazines and bookstores thought the images of naked bellies would offend their customers! The TV show The View reviewed the book in "Hot Topics" along with Inside Edition and Extra. Life Magazine did two full pages the same with the New York Post. The book blazed the trail for what is now the popular pregnant portrait.
I have created four photography/essay books in the last 16 years. It's
really been my journey through life. Now I am really exploring a real
sexy woman's body as art.
I created a Valentine's portrait campaign I called, Fearless Diva Valentine's Portrait Party. I did a shoot with a beautiful woman featured here, Christina Dunbar. She is a poetess and as she brands herself a "Catalyst for Badassery." She is also blessed with an amazing body and the confidence to love it and express that love in poetic posing. She was a blast to work with. I am grateful to have a fantastic makeup/hair artist Nicole Bolin.
I have posted many of the portraits from that session on Facebook to promote the portrait party. Most of the comments where, "Well if I had that body..." So it made me realize that I needed to create a project I am calling, "I am fearless. I am beautiful." I see how so many of us women, no matter what age, have body issues. I know, I'm not the first to bring this up.
So I am putting out there that I am looking for women with full bodies and mature faces. I am looking forward to exploring, body as art!
Mary Ann Halpin is an acclaimed photographer, speaker, and workshop facilitator. She passionately focuses her lens on women’s issues. Her first book, Pregnant Goddesshood: A Celebration of Life,Mary Ann garnered national attention for her book’s powerful images. Controversial at the time, it portrayed pregnant women as radiant and beautiful, and encouraged women to embrace and celebrate their pregnant bodies with a commemorative portrait. This book blazed the trail for the now popular "pregnant portrait." Images from Pregnant Goddesshood have been featured in LIFE Magazine.Mary Ann has appeared on television shows such as The View in “Hot Topics”, Inside Edition,Extra!, and A Baby Story where the book sparked heated national discussion.
Mary Ann has created four photography books, her second book, Fearless Women: Midlife Portraits, which contains compelling black and white portraits of women holding swords who have dared to approach aging with passion and fearlessness. This book features celebrities such as Joni Mitchell, Cybill Shepherd, Erin Brockovich, and many other extraordinary women. The book was featured on The Today Show.
Continuing with the “Fearless” theme, Mary Ann Halpin was a speaker on the “Fearless Women Panel” at eWomenNetwork International Business Convention, Dallas, 2008-2010. Having photographed over 150 women at the conferences, Mary Ann created her photo/essay book, Fearless Women, Fearless Wisdom, portraits and stories of forty amazing women who have transformed their life-challenges into life-triumph. These courageous women are mirrors and examples for us all. Their stories show us that in order to create conscious change within, we must face our fears and walk through them. Their portraits are visual reminders of their personal courage.
Mary Ann’s latest Book, an Amazon Bestseller, Fearless Women, Visions of a New World, features 50 fearless visionary women from around the world. Through their stories of inspiration, they gift us their fearless journey to heal the planet. To learn more about these Books, visit www.fearlesswomenglobal.com
As a portrait photographer, Mary Ann Halpin is dedicated to creating images that express the beautiful poetry of human connection. She believes e need to celebrate our life as art, live in love and connect with family. Having a family portrait on the wall is like having a group hug everyday.
With her husband, studio manager and partner, Joe Croyle, they divide their time between their studio in Los Angeles and their mountain home where they hold life-changing Fearless Women and Creative photography retreats. http://maryannhalpinretreats.com/
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