Would you buy toilet paper from this baby?

I took Maia to have her 3 month portraits done. I wanted some professional pictures, but we couldn't afford a private studio. After doing some research, I decided to take her to Portrait Innovations in Orland Park. Overall, I was very happy with the photo shoot and with the quality of the pictures. They tried to use a few cheesy props, which I'm not big on, but they listened to me when I said I wouldn't buy a picture of my baby draped in a hot pink feather boa, so don't waste your time! They did use a silk daisy in a series of shots and I was like "ok..whatever you think," but it turns out to be one of my favorite pictures. Then, when the shoot was over, the photographer turned it into black and white, and I was sold.

So, they work about 20-30 minutes taking about 50-60 shots, then they sit down with you at a large screen and make you start trashing them. Once you hesitate just a bit, they pull up a corresponding package. Its pretty slick:

Me: Oh, I don't know, I like all 26 of them we have left

Photographer: Well, we have our 26 pose package, its only $450!

Me: Delete number 2, 5,6, 23, and 26

And on and on it went. I had settled on the six pose package and started picking out sizes when I realized that we don't have enough family, friends, or wall space for 94 pictures of Maia. So I cut out three more and went with the more reasonable 3 pose. This is where they got a little hard sell on me, but I held firm and walked out of there with the right number of pictures. Oh, and an 8 x 10 of the black and white with her and the flower. It makes me melt.

Like I said, overall a very good experience with Portrait Innovations. If you have the dough, a local private photographer is the way to go, but if that's not possible, its nice to know you can have decent portraits done and stick to your budget.

So, enjoy. We received low res digital files of all the pictures they took, including this one that looks like it should be on a package of TP. Be prepared for cuteness overload!