Stephanie Bajak

I have reached 400 followers! Well 461 to be exact! Thank you for your continued support.🙏🤗🎉

TDLR in the comments

This morning I received a message from a friend with a link to an article by of featuring a photo I took of my son! It was such a wonderful surprise to see one of my photos and (that I may or may not forgot was floating around) and my name on the Business Insider website/Facebook! I took this photo of my son G back when I put down my film/ pointshoot cameras and dove into my first DSLR. While G may be 16 now I still see this squishy face every time he smiles!

I have loved photography since I was a child. I always had a camera with me and I have thousands and thousands of photographs I have taken over my life. I was never sure if I ever wanted to take this hobby of mine full time especially when my kids were little and Joe was in the Army. Two kids,Deployments and trying to stay healthy pretty much is all I had the energy for. It was exhausting sometimes and my camera is what recharged my soul.

I went legit last year on paper but Lupus Nephritis had other plans for me. It was a very hard year multiple hospital stays, many many blood transfusions, almost dying in July it has been a lot! I was lucky enough to start injections few months ago and add it to the many many medications and treatments I am already on and it is making a difference. My hemoglobin is now stable and my kidneys aren't getting worse and my symptoms are mild most days.

I am hoping to offer limited sessions later this year. Lupus better get it together. It took control for a while but now it's my turn!

I was always worried about posting my photos for others to see. Photography has been so personal for me for so long It is hard to put yourself out there. Oh and Imposter syndrome can be a bitch! But man it feels good to see this! While every photo may not be "technically" correct 🙄 and I have my own specific style that isn't for everyone 🤷🏻‍♀️, every single one of my photographs has a piece of my heart🥂 To 2023! And thanks to the editors at Business Insider for using one of my photos!

As a Chicagoan I am enjoying the cooler weather but I can not wait for warm beach days!

One of my favorites from this session! 🖤

If my husband thinks he can move me away from the beach now he has lost his damn mind! 😂 While the mountains of Colorado were beautiful the beach is where I need to be!

💁🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️

In other super exciting news this gorgeous couple ties the knot in exactly ONE month!

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A&B🖤

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Sneak Peak from Saturday! These two 🔥

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"If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden.” – Claudia Adrienne Grandi

Blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures.

-Lovelle Drachman

She blooms even when darkness engulfs her.

-Becca Lee

Let us live like flowers
Wild and beautiful
And drenched in sun

-Ellen Everett

Hilarious!

OMG guys...I decided to have some fun and give babies teeth. HAHAHAHA I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. I could have gone back and done this to every single baby that has ever come in my studio. Can't. Stop. Laughing. So I just thought I'd share and give you all a good laugh too!
All images © Coffee Creek Studio. Do not share, download, screenshot, or publish without permission.
Please contact [email protected] for licensing and sharing requests.
After creating these, I have spoken with all parents regarding the use of these photos. All of these babies get a free photo session as a thank you ;)

Channeling The Pain Of Depression Into Photography, And Finding You Are Not Alone Tara Wray's book Too Tired for Sunshine is a collection of images she made while struggling with depression. The work struck a chord with others, who are now sharing their images in an online project.

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Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.

Siblings are often the first playmates we have and some of the best memories are with them.

Had the most amazing time at the micro workshop with and ! These ladies were so amazing and open with all the super cool chicks who attended. Thank you all for such a great time! .

“There is nothing as sincere as a mother’s kiss.” ― Saleem Sharma

"In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present." .

"Shine like the whole universe is yours."

The beautiful and incredible Stormy Solis.

A Mother's love is something that no one can explain, it is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain. It is endless and unselfish and enduring come what may. For nothing can destroy it or take that love away. —Helen Steiner Rice

Love her but leave her wild. .

"He wasn't a hero known to the world, but a hero he was to his little girl."-Rebecca Cook





Inspiration and Styling by

“A mother’s treasure is her daughter.”






Styling and Inspiration by

I have an urgent message I want to share about the importance of printing your pictures!

I absolutely back up my family's pictures and my clients pictures onto external hard drives. I have externals upon externals of storage crowding my office of images I have taken.

However...

I hope that no-one puts all of their trust in me, or any photographer you work with, to keep your sessions forever.. And I also hope that you don't put all of your trust into a CD or USB you receive from your session before printing your pictures out because I've mistakenly trusted my externals for my own pictures before printing them, and this is why I stress this problem.

At the end of 2016, my external hard drive crashed. Thankfully I have insurance through PPA and only had to spend $200 out of $1500 to have it recovered...but about 30% of my images - including clients - were nonrecoverable.

Today I was going through the hard drive they gave back to me with both the recovered and ruined files, and this is one of them of my own children that I took. Along with this image, there are SEVERAL others that are no longer able to be printed that I hadn't printed in the first place. Why didn't I? Well, because I constantly told myself "I'll do it soon", "tomorrow, I'll print them", "when I figure out how I want them printed, I'll do it", all while relying on technology to hold on to my precious pictures.

I'll go ahead and be completely honest, too. If you've inquired with or worked with boutique-style photographers like me, you've probably wondered why the digital files are a tad pricey, and sometimes even the same cost as the prints.

THIS is why.

Digital files are not complete pieces of art. They are for temporary archival purposes or for immediately sharing with friends and family. But they are not created to last forever, they are not heirloom, they are definitely not the best purpose for your beautiful pictures.

Aside from the fact that they are destructible on a grand scale (meaning, if a print gets messed up, that one print gets messed up. But if a USB of your pictures gets messed up - that ENTIRE collection of images gets messed up), they also may not be useable in years to come.

Think of VHS tapes, cassette tapes, even CD's. Most computers don't even come with CD drives these days!

For an even better visual, a USB of your images can be compared to the original film from a film camera. Today, it's much more difficult to get those images from a roll of film than it was 50 years ago. Even so, if you damage a roll of film, most images will be unusable, just as it would be if you damaged your USB. However, we still have prints available from 20, 50, 100 years ago. Actually, did you know the oldest photograph is about 190 years old? Can we say that the longevity of a VHS, CD, or even a USB can match that?

My stomach turned when I saw this image and the several others that are not completely unprintable. This is actually a screenshot of the image because it wouldn't load in this post since there just isn't enough data there. This is a broken image that will forever remain on this external, and eventually we probably won't even have the resources left to open it.

I've been trying to implement a way to give my clients the incredible art they deserve, while also giving them the digital files they want so that they can immediately share with friends and family, and I think I'll finally be able to do that for 2018. When I receive our images from our own sessions, or when I finish pictures of my own family, I have the habit of letting them waste away on my computer because I think "I'll print them later", and I never do. I don't want that for my clients. I want them to immediately be able to enjoy them for now, for tomorrow, and forever, before technology does its damage.

If you have pictures sitting around on your desktop that have never left that safe haven, please print them soon. You absolutely won't regret it, I promise.

Dear Nikon, #Womencan Over 100 Nikon images. Dear Nikon, .