If you’ve been following my blog for a while you just might recognize these folks and you’ll also notice they’ve grown by one! The Wilsons are an awesome family I’ve photographed before and I was so happy when I heard that they had welcomed their baby boy, Sawyer, and wanted to bring him out for a photo session. I love photographing happy families around this time of year in Linden, CA. The leaves are changing colors, the light is beautiful, the air is crisp and there is just something about the fall that inspires me. I still have a very limited number of spots open for family photo sessions (two spots in the Bay Area and three in Linden) so if you’re interested in scheduling something, let me know soon. I’m also offering newborn sessions in the comfort and warmth of my studio in downtown Linden. I hope everyone is having a beautiful fall and looking forward to “the most wonderful time of year.” More photos to come soon! Enjoy.

As promised, I wanted to share with you some of the history behind Huntley Drew’s name as well. If you haven’t read my previous post about Eden’s name please refer to that and you’ll understand how important I think names are. Plus they’re just cool…aaaaaand you’re stuck with it for life.
Huntley Drew is our youngest and the resident comedian of the household. He does anything and everything for a laugh. Way more daring than his big sister (or maybe just not as wise) and definitely all boy. Huntley has a sweet side that loves to hug his “mama”, give kisses and display the warmest smiles a heart can ever see.
We whittled our list of boys names down from probably 15-20 to about three. It was definitely harder than naming Eden. The name “Huntley” kept coming back into play. I love the sound of it, the masculine character it contains when you speak it, the intrigue of how uncommon it is but how familiar it is in a sense. Rev. Wayne Huntley pastors a church in Raleigh, North Carolina and speaks at meetings internationally. He’s always been a man who impacts me with his passion to serve and wisdom to share. We love the guy and he has left an indelible touch on my life so we thought we would borrow his last name and make it a first. Pretty cool right?
Drew is a different story but just as meaningful. Besides the obvious abbreviation of my middle name, Andrew, one of my dearest friends and just an all-around hero in my life is Andrew Buxton. I’ve known him since I was a lad and I really became close to him while working for him during college and when I got married. Drew (as those closest refer to him) is the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off of his back. He loves his family in ways that have taught me how to love mine. I owe a lot to Andrew Buxton. I wish I had the time to share some of the hilarious stories of our days spent working in San Diego County. Good times. So it was with great delight that we selected “Drew” for Huntley’s middle name. So far both of our kids haven’t ran into a whole lot of other Huntleys or Edens (although there were a few we know who “borrowed” the name Eden) and I like it that way.
In other news, Huntley just got signed up for Gap Kids’ Casting Call. He’s eligible to win a great award, a photo-shoot and other things. We’d love it if you went over and voted for him. You can vote once per day, so leave a tab open and check it out tomorrow! Much thanks. Enjoy.

This set was all photographed within about an hour. It is representative of a typical afternoon at the Shoemake household. Huntley loves to play. He loves his toy camera, guns, skateboards and mischief in general. I love coming home from the studio and just hanging out with him. At times I’m Huntley’s personal jungle gym and other times we’re skating buddies, it is pretty awesome. I can’t wait until he gets a little bigger and I can take him skiing with me like his big sister.
On a whim (which is usually the case) I bought a 30 year old Zeiss 50 1.4 lens for my Canon cameras. It is a fully manual focus lens and super small/lightweight. The image quality is incredible and the colors are fantastic. The photos you see posted below are jpegs directly from my camera (yes, I shoot black and white in camera a lot). You heard me right, no Photoshop, no Lightroom, no Aperture, no gimmicks and all of this with a 30 year old lens. So take a minute to leave a note for Huntley and say hi.
If you’re thinking about a fall portrait session for your family or children, I’m going to be offering a few “Mini-session” days in the Valley and the Bay Area (and possibly SoCal) and I also have limited availability for full-length sessions. Email, leave your info in the comment section or call for more details. Enjoy.

I’m a huge fan of freedom. I believe that freedom leads to creativity. I’m thankful for freedom and I never want to forget the reason why we celebrate this weekend. Make sure and talk about freedom to your family and friends this weekend. Think about those that don’t have it. What can you do to spread freedom? Enjoy.

So, we had an awesome “partial” family session on saturday morning with my new friends: Aimee (mom), the beautiful Mia, and the ever-energetic Baker! The location was the McHenry Mansion in downtown Modesto. This was a beautiful family to photograph and I don’t know who had more fun, me or the kids! The reason I used the word “partial” is because dad is away working right now. So as a surprise Aimee wanted to get some pictures to help him pass the days! I just love what an image can do! I was glad to be a part of such a cool idea. Enjoy the images and book a family session today. Here’s a little slideshow to kick things off.