Holiday gifts from Lara Alcantara Photography.

GIFT IDEA NUMBER 1

Hello all, I hope you are all doing well. Now that we are in November ( sooo fast!) We are all starting to think about holiday cards and gifts for the holidays. How about letting me tell you what I can offer to help you cross some things off your to-do-list this year.

First of all everything I can offer you is a piece of art, and what better gift than that???

This year Lara Alcantara Children's Photography has come up with gift certificates. You can buy a gift certificate for a loved one. This will be delivered in a beautifully printed envelope on time for the holidays. They range from $225-625. This may include a list of different packages. The list is a follows.

Short and sweet Session

. 40 min portrait session

.One location in Manhattan

. A CD with 20-30 high resolution images ready for print.

. $250 cash/ 275 Check

Family or Children's Portrait session ( Recession special)

. 1-1 1/2 hour portrait session

. Two locations within walking distance

. A CD with 30-40 high resolution images ready for print. No prints

. $350 cash/ $375 check

Petit Pois, newborn session

. 1/2 hour portrait session

. 20 high resolution images ready for print. No prints

. $ 300 Cash/ 325 check

Before and After session

. Two 1-2 hour sessions, one maternity and one newborn session

. 1 location

. 30- high resolution images ready for print of each session. No prints

. $400 cash/$425 Check

One special year

. Three 1-2 hour portrait sessions, within child's first year.

. 2 locations within walking distance

. 30 high resolution images ready for print from each session.

. Package print: 1 8X10,2 5X7, 10 4X6 prints

. $60 cash/ 625Check

Birthdays

. Up to 2 hours of shooting time Extra hours are charged additional.

. 100-200 high resolution images ready for print. No prints

. $375. extra hour is $75.

All photo shoots take place outdoors, at your home or at a location of your choice taking advantage of the natural light. There is a travel fee for locations outside of New York City.

Lara Alcantara-Lansberg

laraalcantarachildren.com

cel:646 234 3391

GIFT IDEA NUMBER 2

I have come up with other projects that may be of interest to you or to a loved one. One of them is a project I called "Steps"

This year for christmas I have started new set of images for parents that want to have a little piece of their children's baby years made into art. The process is simple. You find a pair of shoes that you find hard to part with and still have lying around the house. You send it to me, I photograph it with a very high resolution camera, making sure the little details are in the image,we chat and find a small phrase that you want on the bottom of the image that might sum up what they mean to you and to your child's development track. I print it on an archival 11X14 size paper and send it to you. It is a very beautiful and personal gift.

These for example are my daughter's first real shoes and if you notice you can even see the small marks of her 11 month old toes. She destroyed these shoes in the summer of 2008.

GIFT IDEA NUMBER 3

For all of those who's home used to be Caracas, Venezuela, I have a series I made of the Avila in various sizes for sale. They are editions of ten, still have at least 8 or 7 of each size left. Here are the images.

Small Size $300

Medium Size $ 400

Large Size Special order $ 500

Holiday Special with frame $ 700-1400

GIFT IDEA NUMBER 4

The last Holiday gift is the one and only Crib-a-Book, made and patented by yours truly. Which is the best way to have your bookworms keep some books by their bedside, a water bottle for midnight thirsts and maybe a flashlight like my Maia so when she is a little scared of the dark she can have a bit of light at reaching distance. Before the monsters in the closet get to her vast imagination. This hangs on the wall, or crib railing so your early waking toddler can be entertained for a while so you can get a bit more of sleep. Who wouldn't love you for that.

And so I have come to the end of all of my gifting ideas from Lara Alcantara Photography!!!!!!

If you have any questions or wish to order any of these items please contact me at laraalcantara@gmail.com or call me at cel: 646 2343391

Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!!

Hello guys, hope you are all doing well. I wanted to share with you a little bit of happiness going on in my life in New York City.

Besides it getting colder by the minute we had the start of the fun end of the year festivities! I love Halloween, I must say it has always been a fun thing for me. Living here in NYC you have to get creative and have lots of friends in different places. Now that Maia is three and a half, and going to school everyday I have made what I can call... the best group of friends ever. Last year I met the most amazing group of mama's around. We are very good at getting together not only with the kids but also getting together once or twice or even three times a month for drinks, movie nights and dinner.

This idea of getting together all the time has not only made us a closer group but also has made us better moms. Going out for drinks with the girls and talking about all kinds of things including the bad things, makes us get home feeling like we could live up to our own grand expectations of being great parents. Happy to be honest and not deny that we do chat about the hubbies too, and their little things that drives us nuts, or that melt our hearts. The kids also are a big part of our conversations, their phases of whining, bad eating days, sick days and most of all how to make them get through these without driving us up the wall.

I have to say, it just feels good getting things of your chest to other moms that have experienced the same and getting feedback on how to fix things. We all love our kids but its the reality that sometimes they drive us nuts and take us to the end of the quality of being patient, as bearing of provocation, anoyance, loss of temper, irritation or the like.

There are ways to keep it cool, and between all of us there is always someone that can help with the problem.

Yesterday for halloween we all got together, the kids dressed up and we all went to the Kips Bay towers for a halloween parade for the kids, glow sticks, trick or treating and apple juice. At the end our friend Thea and her man invited us over for drinks while all the kids just played in the room next door and we could sit relax and have a much needed glass of wine. I dressed up as Twiggy and my husband was Andy Warhol. It was so much fun!

here are some pics of our wonderful night.

I love you guys!

Andy Warhol and Twiggy

The Fink Girls Stella and Ava

Sleeping Beauty and mama Twiggy

Maya Shah, Stella Fink, Maia Pardo Alcantara and Ava Fink the princesses of the night!

Menka Shah, Kelly Fink and I

Andy, Aurora and Twiggy

Maia and the Fink girls.

My favorite dragon ever!

Trick or treat!

Mommy look what I got! smarties!

Mehul, Luis and Menka

YOUR CHILD'S SHOES MADE INTO A WORK OF ART

This year for christmas I have already started making a new set of images for parents that want to have a little piece of their children's baby years made into art. The process is simple. You find a pair of shoes that you find hard to part with and still have lying around the house. You send it to me, I photograph it with a very high resolution camera, making sure all the little details are on the image, we chat and find a small phrase that you want to have on the bottom of the image. I print it on an 11x14 size archival paper and send it you. Here on the bottom is one example if you click on the image you will be directed to the whole portfolio. It is a beautiful and very personal gift.

Price: $175 each image.

Details: Hand printed on archival paper by myself and delivered to you with archival paper wrap in a hard archival envelope, wherever you are.

You can contact me at laraalcantara@gmail.com , or call me at 646-234-3391

My trip to Paris and Venice with my mom.

Growing up you wish that someday you will be married and have kids and live the life you always wanted. I grew up, I met my husband and married him, had a daughter 3 years later and now I have to say I am living the life I always wanted. Not only I live in New York City, which is my dream city, but I get to live and share this city with my husband and my daughter Maia. After a couple of years of being a mom and 6 being a wife I got the opportunity of having an all girls trip to Paris and Venice with my mom. No men and no kids. Just my mom and I.

This has been the most amazing trip, I rediscovered who I am, and what I love about myself and how much I love photography. I rediscovered my girliness and my craziness, and my incredibly dark, black humor.

My mom and I spent 9 days between Paris and Venice looking at art in the Venice Biennial and enjoying beautiful days in September. This trip has given me the power to be again the best mom and wife I can be. Getting away from reality for a little bit is just an enlightening process. First I discovered how much I miss spending time with my mom, and second I discovered the reasons why I love who I am. Might sound egotistic, but yes, you have to know what you love about yourself to be able to love other people. I also understood, that now life without children is no longer yours, it is theirs, all you think about is how much they would love this toy, or how cute they might look in that frenchy clothes. I also realized that I can't live without my husband. How much I love him and how much Paris is a part of us. Every corner and every cafe, we had a glass of wine at when we were not parents yet.

Here are some pics of my girly trip with my mommy.

This pic is in Venice We left Paris at 6 am and had the best weather and most amazing art to watch. This is the sunset of our first day there. If you know me, you might realize I chopped all of my hair off!!!!!

The Venice Biennial is one of the most incredible art shows known to man. The whole city of Venice which is beautiful by itself turns into a museum. Every country participates with their own chosen artists and the beauty of shared spaces and Venice and art get together to present an inspiring array of art works in all kinds of medium. Photography, painting, Video, Sculpture, performance art, installation art; you name it, its there. Here are some images of some of my favorite pieces.

The art of performance

This chinese Artist wanted to replicate the antique houses that no longer exist. To make a statemnet about traditions passing through and not being a part of life anymore.

Notice the word Maia in the middle of this German art installation... I put that there

This beautiful paper piece is by a Venezuelan artist, we saw this in the Venezuelan Pavilion.

This was in the Israeli pavilion, beautiful image

These were pieces of fabric that hung from the ceiling, made out of silk with prints of leaves over them, showing the change of seasons.

This piece was called the dream closet. You walked in and the piece is built out of old closet doors.

This was in the Russian Pavilion

from the various speakers you could hear people and children's voices and sirens.

Ever been in a James Turrel???? Amazing

I was inspired also to make some images and here are some

This was the last sunset we had in Venice, from the window of our small apt. Just imagine the bells ringing from the church next door.

THE CRIB-A-BOOK

My name is Lara Alcantara I am a children's photographer who is mother to my wonderful daughter Maia and wife to my amazing husband Luis. I am a sleeper, not one of those that can

wake up early and be all chirpy in the morning. So when I had Maia one of the

the things I knew I had to do, was train her to sleep through the night in the early months of her life. So I did. Maia slept 12 hours since she was 7 weeks old. I know... an angel. Getting a

good night's sleep makes me a good mom. She is now 3 1/2 and she only wakes up at

night to go use the potty. The Crib-a-book Helped me get a little more sleep in the mornings.

The Crib-a-book is 24" x 12", I thought if Maia could have some board books and some safe toys in her crib without having to place them on her matress, she could see them as soon as she first opened her eyes in the morning. Not only would she learn to play by herself without anyone leading her, but maybe I could get a little more sleep. It might sound selfish to some, but I am so much of a better mom when I get my sleep. I built it from scratch and placed it in her crib and tested it out for a couple of days, realizing that if I kept it interesting to her by changing out things around and adding new things, she would play by herself and give me my much needed snooze. It was also good for her development to learn to investigate and be curious without me around. It hangs with ribbon ( Included) when the baby is in the crib, and then hangs by their head board for easy reach. It can come monogrammed in any color for an extra cost.

To buy this item please click here

Etsy.com and on the search bar write crib-a-book

I FINISHED TWO MURALS IN 4 DAYS!

Our building has a playroom, but it used to look like a sad room. I decided to paint two murals so it could feel nice and happy in here. Our kids play here all the time especially when it's too hot outside,raining or too cold. It took a lot of patience, a really good level ruler and lots of paint and creativity.

here are some images of the new playroom walls in our building. Painted by me!

This is New York City!

A tree with butterflies, ladybugs and some owls.

Ans some stars and the moon.

HOT>>> HOT>> HOT!

IT WAS 107 TODAY IN NYC, INSANE NUMBERS! SO MUCH FOR NEW CANDLES, FORGOT TO TAKE THEM INSIDE AND THEY MELTED!