My Sister Brenda!

Just a few pretty pho­tos of my younger sis­ter Brenda! I took these at our church after our niece’s bap­tism. I loved the stone wall and asked Brenda to pose for a few pho­tos. She has served as my model in the past quite a few times — she’s very pho­to­genic and look at those eyes!

I am really miss­ing pho­tograph­ing dur­ing my favorite (and usu­ally busiest) time of year. I took some time off and have only sched­uled a ses­sion here and there so that I can spend more time with fam­ily this fall (to read why, see here).

Help Kari Whitehead Photography Support Cancer Research! {Central PA Portrait Photographer}

I am run­ning my first 5K as part of the Four Season’s Park­way Run & Walk event on Sep­tem­ber 30th which sup­ports the Can­cer Cen­ter at Children’s Hos­pi­tal of Philadel­phia (CHOP)!

I have men­tioned my daugh­ter Emily in pre­vi­ous posts here and here. She was diag­nosed with acute lym­phoblas­tic leukemia (ALL) in May 2010 when she was 5 years old. At that time, doc­tors told us that almost 90% of chil­dren with ALL are cured. Although she had a long jour­ney ahead, which included 26 months of chemother­apy, we felt cer­tain that with those odds she would be cured. We were shocked when we learned she had relapsed in Octo­ber 2011. She had to begin a new treat­ment regime which con­sisted of 4 months of heavy chemother­apy and was sched­uled for a bone mar­row trans­plant in Feb­ru­ary 2012. Unfor­tu­nately, she relapsed again in Feb­ru­ary just two weeks before her sched­uled trans­plant. Doc­tors tried another round of chemother­apy but was unable to get her back into remis­sion. They told there wasn’t much more they could do because they didn’t think giv­ing her more con­ven­tional chemother­apy would ever get her back into remission.

We were not ready to lose Emily and we were not giv­ing up. We took her to CHOP and enrolled her in a highly exper­i­men­tal phase I clin­i­cal research trial. Emily was the first pedi­atric patient in the world to receive CART-19 cells. Emily’s own T-cells (a type of white blood cell) were removed from her blood and then in a lab were ‘trained’ to rec­og­nize and kill can­cer cells. Once the T-cells were trained they were infused back into Emily’s blood. Although three adults were pre­vi­ously treated with CART-19 cells and had pos­i­tive results doc­tors weren’t sure how or if the cells would work in a child. On May 10, 2012 we found out the CART-19 cells worked! They had killed all the leukemia cells in Emily’s body and she was in remission! Today, Sep­tem­ber 10th, marks 4 months since she has been in remission.

We know we would not have the time we have now with Emily if it wasn’t for the CART-19 trial and the bril­liant and amaz­ing doc­tors who took care of her. We think about that every sin­gle day. We saw first­hand how CHOP saves lives every day.

Our family’s motto is “We Believe”, so we named our team “Team Believe” for the Park­way Run & Walk. Please help us sup­port the Can­cer Cen­ter at CHOP — join or donate to Team Believe! http://giving.chop.edu/goto/KariW

Have you been inter­ested in sched­ul­ing a photo ses­sion for Fall/Holiday Fam­ily Por­traits? If you donate $50 or more to Team Believe you will receive a 30 minute photo ses­sion plus one 8x10 photo of your ses­sion for FREE! Just make your dona­tion online (please make the dona­tion in your name — if you check anony­mous I can­not ver­ify who it is) and send me an email (kari@kariwhiteheadphotography.com) to let me know you made a dona­tion of $50 or more. I will then be in touch to sched­ule your ses­sion! Ses­sions will take place the end of Sep­tem­ber through the mid­dle of Octo­ber. A lim­ited num­ber of ses­sions are avail­able. You will also receive dis­counts through my online order­ing sys­tem for any addi­tional photos/products you order! I am SO excited to give back!

Emily, now 7 years old, is doing fan­tas­tic and started 2nd grade two weeks ago! You can read more about Emily’s story on her Face­book Page: Prayers for Emily (Emma) White­head or Car­ing­bridge.

Lindsey {Pregnancy Photos}

Although I am not sched­ul­ing any ses­sions for sev­eral months due to my daughter’s ill­ness, I was recently able to find some time to take mater­nity pho­tos for my youngest sis­ter Lind­sey. Lind­sey is due with her first baby in May! I was so excited for this ses­sion! Here is a sneak peak of a few photos:

Brothers…

As I was going through some of my ses­sions over the past year or two and clean­ing out old files, I noticed I had quite a few ses­sions with broth­ers. I love sib­ling pho­tos (I have three sis­ters, 2 step-sisters, and 2 step-brothers myself!) Here are a few of my favorite pho­tos I’ve taken of broth­ers. My favorite is the last photo — it was towards the end of the ses­sion and they wanted to play in the mud pud­dle so I thought “why not?”. I clicked the shut­ter just as the youngest acci­den­tally flicked mud on his older brother!

Kephart Family Photos

I love when clients ask me to take pho­tos at their home. It’s always a lit­tle bit of a chal­lenge for me because I never know what the light­ing will be like, what back­grounds will be avail­able, etc. It is also really fun because I know these pho­tos will be unique and very spe­cial to the fam­ily because they are so per­son­al­ized. I was lucky this day because we had an old barn as a great back­drop plus shaded woods in the backyard!

Hope for the New Year

Due to my daughter’s ill­ness I am not sched­ul­ing any por­trait ses­sions until sum­mer. My 6-year old daugh­ter Emily has leukemia and will be under­go­ing a bone mar­row trans­plant in February. The new year was going to bring a lot of changes to KWP — it was going to be an excit­ing year. I hope it still will be but it will be delayed until the sec­ond half of 2012! Until I am sched­ul­ing and post­ing new ses­sions again, I plan to post my favorite pho­tos from years past. I also plan to share my favorite pho­tos of Emily.

If you would like to fol­low our jour­ney you can do so here: http://www.facebook.com/emilybrookewhitehead

and here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/emilywhitehead

We are hop­ing for a health­ier, happy new year!

Happy 2012!

Tom, Kari, Emily & Lucy

Ashley & Jerry | {Family Photos}

Ash­ley and Jerry are new­ly­weds and wanted some Fall pho­tos taken.  We met at Black Moshan­non State Park at the very end of Fall.  We got there just in time because within a few days the leaves had all fallen off the trees.  I love pho­tograph­ing at Black Moshan­non — there are so many dif­fer­ent places to go!

We started off with some tra­di­tional shots…

Then a few fun shots…

Gorgeous Mom-To-Be! | {Maternity Photos}

I took these pho­tos back in Octo­ber (I’m that far behind in blog­ging!).  It was a per­fect day with a gor­geous mom-to-be and the pho­tos were taken in a fab­u­lous loca­tion.  I had such a great time tak­ing these pho­tos — this cou­ple is so sweet and they were so excited for their first baby — I’m glad I had a chance to meet them and pho­to­graph them!  I just took pho­tos of their new­born in Decem­ber (pho­tos to be posted soon!) — he is soooo adorable!

Alex & Noah | {Child Photography}

I’m going to try to get caught up on blog­ging all the recent ses­sions I’ve done over the past few months!

Below are Alex and Noah.  I took hol­i­day pho­tos of these two last year too — I was so glad to take their photo again this year!

Ava & Jared | {Family Photography}

Last year I pho­tographed these two and I was so happy that they returned this year!  I love see­ing how the kids change from one year to the next.  We had a VERY windy and chilly day out­side for the photo shoot!