My first experience of mini-sessions was at Christmas last year. In one way mini-sessions are brilliant, because you can get a lot done in a little time. In another way they are really tough, because there are so many photos to look through and so much editing to do in such a short period.

I offered mini-sessions for the first time at Christmas last year.  I did a couple of days with a few sessions each day and then I did a session here and there for a couple of weeks as people realised they were getting close to the deadline for sending out family Christmas cards!  These sessions really helped build my portfolio and I got to meet a lot of new people.  What I learned is that it's hard to meet new people and get children to like me all within 25 minutes!  It's also tough to choose just five images for people so I invariably gave a couple more here and there!

Some of these have been my favourite sessions so far. Some people are so natural in front of the camera. It also made me appreciate how the light could change so dramatically at different times of the day.  I've learnt over the past year to love the evening light, in the couple of hours before sunset, but I also embrace the challenge of late morning sessions in bright sunlight!  I do sometimes hope for cloudy days though...

Leni-7025-Masculus It was also around this time that I played around with my logo.

It didn't last long!

The lessons I learned from Christmas mini-sessions - they are hard work but it is fun to meet so many new people in such a short space of time! Next time, I will probably choose the location better and set a 'scene' for my block mini-sessions at Christmas time.  

I also decided to offer mini-sessions as gift certificates for special occasions, the first one being Father's Day.  This worked well for me as I could stay close to home and easily fit a half hour session into life with two kids.  It also allows people to have a bit more flexibility on when their session will be.  

I'm not going to offer mini-sessions as a standard package outside of these 'specials' any more, mainly because I like spending more time with families and getting to know them better!