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National Adorable Children and Pawsitively Adorable Contest Winners {SE MN Photographer}

We are proud to announce we had 9 winners in the National portion of the Adorable Children and Pawsitively Adorable contests. The National portion of the contest took place at the lab and was judged by a panel of judges based on quality, appearance, charm, expression, and personality.

In the National Pawsitively Adorable contest…

We had First Place for Me & My Human. They won a $100 Visa gift card.

We had Second Place for Newborns. They won a $75 Visa Gift Card.

We had a Third Place for Dogs. They won a $50 Visa Gift Card.

We had an Honorable Mention for dogs. Super exciting as this is my dog, Maverick. We won a $25 Visa Gift Card.

We had an Honorable Mention in Buddies. They won a $25 Visa Gift Card.

In the National Adorable Children contest…..

We had a Second Place for Bloopers. They won a $75 Visa Gift Card.

We had a Third Place for Bloopers. They won a $50 Visa Gift Card.

We had a Third Place for 13 Months- 2 Years. They won a $50 Visa Gift Card.

We had an Honorable Mention for 9-12 Years. They won a $25 Visa Gift Card.

The lab where these took place is having some website issues, but as soon as we can see the other winners, I will post them here, too. Congratulations, everyone! Thanks for participating and voting! =)

And since we did not do the local portion of the Pawsitively Adorable as it was mostly my assistant’s dogs and family pets, and I had not posted the Pawsitively Adorable images, these are the other images we submitted. So they each received a 16×20 print from their session.

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JLee’20 {SE MN Senior Portrait Photographer}

Sharing a few images from JLee’s senior portrait session from last fall. This girl . . . she has style, a lover of all things vintage, an amazing smile, and she is just so sweet JLee did an exclusive session that we split into 3 different days. We did some photos in the studio and also head out to Ironwood Springs Christian Ranch for the outdoor portion of her session. So much fun and such a beautiful location.


JLee, whatever you do in life I KNOW it will be amazing and you will bring life and light to whoever you’re around, you are seriously a breath of fresh air.

senior girl with violin
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Back at it {SE MN Portrait Photographer}

Masks and social distancing during sessions will take a bit to get used to, but it felt great to get behind the camera again last week after just over 2 months. Here are a few sneak peeks of what we did last week….

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Lucas ’20 {SE MN Senior Farm Portrait Session}

I really truly could not decide what to choose to share from Lucas’s senior session. Lucas knew exactly what he wanted from poses to locations, he made our job easy. I think that senior portraits should totally reflect who you are in the moment and what you love. If you are trying to figure out what to wear for your senior pictures, go for what you feel comfortable in. Whatever feels like “you”. Add the places and things that you enjoy whether sports, hobbies or even farm equipment. And that’s just what Lucas did.

We split his exclusive senior session into 2 days. Both days it looked like it would rain but we went with it and got some amazing skies. However, the second night when we did the photos with his tractors and truck, the sky and weather changed so much that night. It was awesome as it gave us so much variety. We went from blue cloudy skies to the sun being out to an amazing sunset as well.

The first night we did a few studio photos and then we went out to one of their soybean fields and then over to his family’s property that had a bunch of old buildings that they have plans to tear down but are a photographer’s dream and made for the perfect rustic backgrounds. I should have taken some plain building photos to make some backdrops of as I absolutely loved the buildings. There was also a cornfield across the road, and anyone who knows Lucas, you know the silly outtake photo of him in the corn is so him and if you look closely you can see his youngest brother in the frame as well. I had thought of photoshopping him out, but it was just too cute and such a great memory.

For Lucas’s second part of his session, he had picked out a gravel road with the windmills, corn, and the sun setting behind. Such an awesome spot. And making it even better, all the changes in the weather we had that. The evening ended up giving us so many different and beautiful skies. It was so hot, crazy humid, cloudy, windy, then it rained a little, and then the sun came out just before sunset. It was perfect! We also were able to get some family photos, but I will have to share another time.

Congratulations, Lucas! Thanks for choosing us to capture these memories for you and your family.

blonde senior farm boy leaning on tin shed
senior boy portrait in MN cornfield
senior boy with bow and arrow with sky behind
senior boy in plaid with john deere tractor on minnesota gravel road
senior boy with wiuth gun over shoulders on gravel with road with sun setting behind
senior boy leaning on truck with beautiful sunset

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Happy Birthday {SE MN Senior Portrait Photographer}

Wishing my cousins a happy 18th birthday, today. You came into this world early as fighters each weighing 2 lbs and under, spending the first few months in the hospital and now you are turning 18 and are continuing to show your strength and your resilience graduating from high school during a global pandemic. Such great stories and life lessons that you will be able to tell to your grand-kids, and you’re just getting started!

Behind you, all the memories. Before you, all your dreams, Around you, all who love you. Within you, all you need. Your strength is truly inspiring. Be proud and stand tall as you take this next step in your journey of life.

Happy Birthday, Casey, Brandt, and Jacob, and congratulations on your graduation!

Triplet Sibling outdoors on blue shirts
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Re-Opening {SE MN Portrait Photographer}

As I work on rescheduling postponed sessions today, I wanted to take a moment to layout how our new normal for doing a session will look. We have come up with the following guidelines and safety precautions to keep our clients and ourselves safe and healthy. A lot of it is the same as our normal practice beyond us wearing masks when needed and not being able to give hugs and high fives to the children. Please be patient with us as we try to navigate this new normal. Thank you all so much for your continued support! Stay safe!

Sessions: All sessions will be outdoor for the time being. We will only be accepting groups of no more than 8 people at one time. Only those being photographed and parent/guardian will be allowed during sessions. No bystanders. Extra people means extra risk.

Health Check: We will check in with the client before the session to be sure they or nobody in their family is or has been sick. If you, your children, or anyone in your house feels sick (or has been sick in the last 14 days), PLEASE reschedule your session. Likewise, I will postpone all sessions if I, my assistant or my family don’t feel well. Kari and the assistant will fill out a health check the day of the session as well. Please don’t put myself, my assistants, our families, and my other clients at risk.

Social Distancing: We will follow all guidelines for social distancing by keeping at least 6 feet between us and and our clients. I will be using a telephoto (zoom) lens to accomplish this when taking photos as well, we will still get a variety of closeups and full body shots.

Posing: Photography sessions will be no-contact, which means my assistant and I will guide you from a safe distance on how to pose, adjust clothing and adjust hair. With children, parents may have to move them into place or adjust the pose if needed.

Props: Props will be limited to keep the potential germ threat to a minimum. We will wipe down and sanitize before and after every session.You are welcome to bring any personal props of your own to use! This makes the images more personal and unique, as well as giving you more peace of mind.

Face masks: At all shoots, we will wear a face mask if guidelines from the State of Minnesota or the CDC recommend we do this. We will also ask that anyone not being photographed does so as well, but nobody has to. If we happen to scare children with our masks, we will be sure to remove our mask but maintain more than 6ft away.

Sanitizing gear: I will clean my gear before and after each session . I will use cleaners appropriate and safe for my gear.

Hand washing: We will continue to use the best hand washing practices as recommended by the CDC. We will also have hand sanitizer available.

Ordering: Ordering as normal will be an online gallery and if you need additional help, we will do so by phone or by video calling.

Payment: We prefer payments be made online, but can still take cash or check.

Order pick up: We will continue to have pick up at my house to be able to maintain curbside, no contact pick up. Or you can opt to have your order shipped to you as well.

P.S. I hate posting without photos, so here’s a few photos of Maverick from yesterday. The tulips are so pretty right now.

Black english lab with red collar and yellow tulips behind
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Photography by Kari specializes in custom portraiture of newborn, family, children sports team banners, dog, and high school seniors in Spring Valley, MN, and surrounding Southeast Minnesota areas.

Areas, including, but not limited to, Rochester, Preston, Chatfield, Stewartville, Grand Meadow, LeRoy, Ostrander, Kasson, Hayfield, Plainview, St. Charles and Pine Island.

Southeast Minnesota based photographer.

specializing in newborn, family, children, and senior photography.

located in sPRING vALLEY, mn

TELEPHONE :: 507.951.0640

E-MAil :: kari@photographybykari.com