• Welcome to my blog!

    Welcome and thank you for visiting my blog! I'm a mom of three and a portrait photographer in Fairfield County, CT specializing in families and head shots.

    I use my blog to share posts about my sessions, announce specials and to share a piece of myself!

    I love to help women feel beautiful from the inside out and to help families take a moment to be fully present and connect with each! I do that through my photography and also through sharing my own struggles here on my blog!

Partnership with Good Morning Wilton

I’m excited to announce that I will be a regular contributing photographer to Good Morning Wilton. I will be contributing images to some of the very special stories that Heather tells about our incredibly special community. Mostly they will be head shots of people that are out there making a difference. My goal is always to capture the true beauty and unique essence of the individuals in my head shots. Heather noticed that in my images and asked me to help her capture that for her daily news website. It’s my honor!

Good Morning Wilton shares the same values as I hold for my photography business and my volunteer Facebook page “Wilton CT 411″. We both believe in being positive, connecting with others and highlighting the GOOD in people and in the community! Together we will use words and images to tell stories about community members that are doing good things!

Read all about it here!

http://goodmorningwilton.com/gmw-and-wilton-photographer-andrea-topalian-create-partnership/

What is Good Morning Wilton?

“GOODMorningWilton.com.  It’s a daily news website for Wilton that highlights the good parts of our community—new businesses, longtime businesses that haven’t gotten as much exposure, profiles of good people to know in Wilton, and things that happen and make news around town and in our schools. We’ll cover events you’ll want to take part in, organizations you’ll want to volunteer with, and who’s making it all happen in Wilton.”

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Thank you Wilton Family YMCA!

I have a story to tell and a big THANK YOU to give to the Wilton YMCA for their part in helping me LAUNCH my BUSINESS in 2006. They did not know that they helped me but they did!

I’ve been meaning to THANK them for many years and I finally got my chance! Good Morning Wilton will tell the story some time soon! In the meantime, here is a sneak peek at my THANK YOU GIFT!! Images in this collage will soon grace their website contact page.:-)

Oh and while we were working on this we came up with a GREAT IDEA!!

We will be working TOGETHER to offer a MEMBER ONLY PROMOTION!

NEED or WANT a PROFESSIONAL HEAD SHOT?

SAVE THE DATE!! Sunday, March 9th!

Moments by Andrea Photography will be offering DISCOUNTED HEAD SHOT MINI SESSIONS as a Fundraiser at the Wilton YMCA by APPOINTMENT for MEMBERS ONLY!

DETAILS To Be Announced!!

An email will be sent out to Y members with the details and a link to register!

 

Staff Group Image bIn the meantime, have fun checking out all these FAMILIAR FACES!!

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Photography Lesson- Fairfield County, CT

Oct032014_0376Certified Professional Photographer, mom of three with a Masters in Education, ready to teach YOU how to use all the features of your SLR so you can get off of Automatic and take control of your camera!

Gift Certificates available for the amateur photographer on your holiday list!

Available JANUARY TO MAY ONLY!!!

 

Do YOU?

  • Do you have an SLR camera? You know, the nice cameras with the detachable lenses?
  • Do you use it on AUTOMATIC settings?
  • Do you want to learn what the other settings are and how to use them?
  • Do you know how to get the correct exposure using ISO, aperture, shutter speed, exposure bracketing?
  • Do you know how to use natural light and stop using that awful on camera flash?
  • Do you have other questions about your camera or photography?

 

If you love taking pics of your kids, have a great camera but don’t really now how to use it, I CAN HELP!

Why would I want to help? While I do want my clients to come to me for annual portraits, I can’t be there for all those little moments every day!

Those moments are captured by Mom and Dad! I call them “Moments by Mommy”. (or Daddy if he’s the one taking most of the pics)

 

INFO

Private Lesson at my WILTON STUDIO.  Bring your CAMERA and get ready to learn! 90 Minutes- $195 for one person-Add one friend for just $50!

Group Lessons at YOUR HOME. Have a daytime coffee or night time girls night out! I come to you! $50-75/person

Group lessons for large non-profits (like mom’s clubs, PTAs, preschools and newcomers clubs) MIGHT BE FREE! Contact me for details.

LESSONS NOT offered June to December! Based on availability and limited to two per week.

LESSONS are NOT for aspiring professional photographers. This is intended for moms and dads who want to learn how to use their cameras to take better pictures of their own children! Thank you!

Here is what one of my clients said about her lesson:

 

” I had an amazing photography lesson today, thanks Andrea! I can’t believe how much I learned in our lesson, and how little I actually knew going into it! I can’t wait to get my kids out there and try to work on what I learned! Andrea is a so patient and knowledgeable and I highly recommend the photo lesson to anyone interested in learning more about how to use your camera and make the best of all of all your photo sessions!

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Fall Portraits and Holiday Cards- Wilton & New Canaan CT

WOW! Fall is an insanely busy time of year in the studio! I photograph about 150 families in 2 months! Then there is the booking of appointments, customer service, editing and posting galleries, processing orders and all in time for that Thanksgiving RUSH of holiday card orders.

I’m soooo thankful for the clients that choose Moments by Andrea for their holiday card pictures and Fall portraits but boy do I wish I were two people! Why not hire someone? I do get assistants to help me on mini session days and to do data entry in my system but “Moments by Andrea” images need to be handled by Andrea so I do it all and then I collapse come December, put on my mommy hat and focus on my family.

I never find time to blog but am on Facebook if you want to see regular posts. Please follow me HERE.

Here are some of the images of families, children, babies and pets that I have posted recently. Most are from my Wilton and New Canaan Family Photo Days. They sold out pretty quickly this year!

I had the best quote from a client at one of the mini sessions. It was her first session with me and I was showing her a few of the shots we were capturing and she said “Wow, this ain’t your first rodeo is it?!”. LOL! Definitely not! After about 1,000 sessions in 8 years of “mini session” I’d say I get it!!

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How to take pictures of your kids like a pro?

Jul152013_0016_1

My little man Derek! Don’t you LOVE IT?

Even my kids give me a hard time for portraits.

You are not alone!!

While I do highly recommend letting a professional photograph YOUR FAMILY once a year I do understand it is not always in the budget!  Or you just like to torture yourself? Either way, I’m here to help! I get it!

Here is an article I wrote in 2011 about “Tips for Taking Portraits of Your Children Like a Pro”.

Full disclosure: It’s a LOT harder than it looks BUT go for it! Activities like this are what memories are made of!!

http://wilton.patch.com/groups/moments-by-andrea-photographys-blog/p/bp–tips-for-taking-portraits-of-your-children-like-a-pro-2

If it doesn’t work out give me a call. I’m pretty much sold out but have an awesome list of talented photographers I can refer you to! XO- Andrea

 

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