Melissa Rabbitt Photography

As long as we are going to a dog-friendly location, the answer is always yes, you can (and should!) bring your dog to your family photo session❤️. I’m so glad I got to photograph this adorable 14 year old girl with her humans last week! I have two senior dogs as well, so this session felt extra sweet 🥰.

Sometimes you have to embrace the princess dress 😜. Never thought I’d say wearing a costume for a family photo session would be perfect (I’m a minimalist/neutrals fan all the way), but here we are! Not only did this dress add texture and movement to our photos, but I’m pretty sure she felt like a real life princess and her radiance just shined through in every single photo 🥰.

One of my least favorite things about being a professional photographer is that to a degree, my business is at the mercy of algorithms. Social media algorithms. Google algorithms. Blah blah blah. For many years, I seemed to have the whole SEO thing pretty figured out and was on page one of Google for Boston keywords, and then it all came crashing down around February when my website basically dropped off the face of the earth. I absolutely panicked and was convinced that my business was going to disappear with it, but you know what happened? While I got far fewer inquiries by way of Boston keyword searches, I continued getting inquiries for local keywords, which meant that nearly every single new booking was from my town or surrounding towns. It turned out to be such an unexpected win, and I met so many people who are practically neighbors (like this family!).

If you’re a photographer, how do you get most of your inquiries? Do you feel like you’re at the mercy of algorithms too, or do you have a giant word-of-mouth network? I want to know!

You should know that when you hire me, you’re getting every pouty, silly, and ridiculous face in your final gallery, because I promiseeee you you’re going to love ‘em forever. But yes, I’ll make sure to take a couple (literally just a couple!) of everyone-looking shots too😜.

Yours truly is a giant do**us who left off an entire slide of her summer wrap-up post the other day, and therefore left out two sessions😭😭😭. It was completely unintentional, but since I’m due to share a winter newborn booking update anyway, you get to see more of one of the sessions I accidentally left out 🥰. I currently am about 2/3 booked for winter (December through February) since I only take a very small number of sessions in the winter months. It’s definitely not too early to reach out if you’re expecting 🤰 👏🏻.

I’ve officially kicked off my fall season (but yes, I know it’s technically still summer!), which means it’s time for a re-cap of the summer sessions I haven’t posted♥️. The only reason each one of these didn’t get its own spot in my feed is that I was so busy that I didn’t have time to post very often!

I loved every single one of these sessions for so many different reasons—from celebrating good health, to memorializing a beloved pet one last time 🥺, to capturing the whole family together before sending the oldest kid off to college. Thank you all for bringing me along on the journey!

My summer came to an end today as I’m heading back to school tomorrow, so Im reflecting on every session I had this summer and feeling immensely grateful! This was the absolute best way to wrap up August. Tug of war, a family pie eating contest (yes, you read that right!), piggyback races and some trampoline backflips 👏🏻. I always have such a blast with this crew, and am so grateful for every single client who returns year after year. I can’t wait to see so many of you this fall! 📷

When weather apps/websites give conflicting forecasts it’s always a little stressful, and there are conflicting forecasts on days when multiple sessions are scheduled back-to-back, it’s even more stressful 🫠. What if the weather holds out for 1 family and not the others, ya know?! On this night in early August I decided to trust the better forecast (plus the radar looked okay for the particular town we were going to), but it looked like absolute Doomsday as I drove to the location and I started to get a little panicky. It ended up being completely dry for my first two sessions (with some moody, dramatic skies!) and as it started to rain during my third 🫣, the sky simultaneously lit up with the most vibrantttt orange I had seen in a while! I think it’s safe to say that we had just about every type of light that night, and I’m so glad we went for it 👏🏻 🤩.

Adorable baby girl with incredible cheeks ✅
Equally adorable home 🏠 ✅
Cute/goofy dog ✅

Also, fun fact: This dog’s name is Spork and I love it😆. It got me thinking about all of the other awesome dog names I’ve encountered, like Potato the Mastiff😆. I meannnn, is that amazing or what? What’s the best dog name you’ve ever heard?!

The weather this past weekend and today was pretty much perfection (and my client here was so lucky!!), but tomorrow’s going to be 95 in Boston 🥵, followed by a drop into the 60s with rain for the weekend. Which leads me to wonder…is it this manic anywhere outside of New England and the Northeast?! This is 🍌!