2024 Heirloom Portrait Photography Event, timeless children’s portraits in Tallahassee, FL

Heirloom Portrait Photography
Heirloom Portrait Photography in Tallahassee, Florida by Sarah Gray Photography

These sweet portraits have been a vision of mine to offer my clients for years. Last summer, I held the first ever Heirloom Portrait Photography Event and I loved every image that we took of each precious child.

I can’t tell you how many client homes I’ve been in that have one of these proudly displayed. Until now, they have only been offered by a few traveling photographers and it’s time Tallahassee had it’s own Heirloom Portrait Photography event to offer these locally.

You’ve probably seen these somewhere and they caught your eye because of their simplicity and timeless quality. 

What are Heirloom Portraits?

Heirloom portraits are a timeless piece of art to hang on your wall, and pass down for generations to come. Focusing on your child against a white background with simple outfitting highlighting their face. These stunning heirloom portraits are taken with a unique approach, a modern pricing structure, and a consistently bright, clean, and soft editing style to ensure your portraits turn out beautifully.

Simple, classy, natural photos. The definition of timeless.

The purpose of these sessions to to create and supply you with a beautiful, timeless portrait of your child to display in your home. Although these portraits can be done at any age, I find that 6 months to age 8 is a great window to capture childhood.

Heirloom Vignette Portraits on location at the Old Bradfordville Schoolhouse in Tallahassee, Florida
Heirloom Portraits on location at the Old Bradfordville Schoolhouse in Tallahassee, Florida

LOCATION: Old Bradfordville Schoolhouse. 6808 Beech Ridge Trail, Tallahassee, FL 32312

Booking Fee: $90

Heirloom Portrait Photography

Heirloom Portrait Photography Sessions Will Include:

  • Photos of one child per session. Each sibling will need a session of their own. Photos of siblings together can be taken between their time slots.
  • Up to 15 minutes of photographing your child. You’ll be shocked how many photos we can take in this amount of time! The goal of these is to create timeless photos of your child. As soon as I’m confident we’ve gotten what we need, we’ll call it a wrap.
  • Online preview gallery where you’ll view and select your collection of digital file(s) and print credit which may be used to purchase printed products for the online store. Product samples will be available to see during your session.
  • Your images are edited to create creamy, soft skin tones that will allow prints to last a lifetime.
  • You’ll be sent a link to an online preview gallery to view your child’s portraits and will have 24 hours to decide which collection you’d like to purchase
  • Each collection includes PRINT CREDIT toward your purchase of printed goods + DIGITAL FILE(S)
  • option to upgrade and purchase additional images
  • outfit suggestions and sources are listed below in the FAQ’s
Heirloom Portrait Photography

Collections Are How you purchase your Heirloom Portraits

We offer three collections. Each includes digital file(s) and print credit to be used toward printing your photos to display in your home.

SILVER Collection/$200 = 1 digital file + $50 print credit

GOLD Collection/$300 = 3 digital files + $100 print credit

PLATINUM Collection/$400 = all digital files + $200 print credit

Questions about Heirloom Portraits that are most commonly asked:

Q: What age range is best for heirloom portraits?

  • There is no preferred age for these photos, but ideally your child is at least 6 months and sitting on their own. I do find that the 2-3 year old age group is great for capturing the last of the “baby phase” and then again when they are a little older at 5-8 for a more grown up look.

Q: Should I bring a bribe for my child? They can be very “active.”

  • As a mom of four, and a current preschool mom myself, please understand I feel very comfortable and have a great deal of experience photographing wiggly children. Some children respond well to the promise of a surprise treat at the end of the session. When the treat is a surprise (as opposed to knowing exactly what it is ahead of time) I find they are more compliant.

Q: How long does the session usually take?

  • On average 5-10 minutes per session. If needed, I will play or give the child a break and retry after a few minutes. Each time slot is 15 minutes long (with a 5 minute buffer between). I find that most children this age cannot sit still longer than 5 minutes at a time, so I work fast during these sessions and know how to recognize when we’ve reached a child’s photo limits.

Q: What should my child wear for their heirloom portrait?

Q: Does it matter what type of shoes they are wearing?

  • Not at all! If you don’t love Disney princess light-up shoes, or superhero crocs but your child loves them, let them wear them. For heirloom pictures, they will not be in the shot. This will be excellent for toddler compliance.

Q: Do you do sibling photos?

  • I do offer sibling photos! Sibling photos can be taken after your individual photos are taken or between your children’s time slots. If you have questions about this, please reach out.

Q: What is your cancelation policy?

  • Session fee is non-refundable but it is transferable to our next heirloom event date, or can be applied toward a full session fee.

We finally hung curtains in our house.

I'd been putting it off for months. Every time I thought about it, I talked myself out of it - we'd just redone so many walls and the last thing I wanted was more holes. But once we actually did it, the blackout curtains went up, we started sleeping so much better, and I felt silly for waiting as long as I did.

And then I thought about all the people sitting on booking a photography session for basically the same reason.

The process feels like a lot until it isn't. And then you wonder why you waited.

If you've been meaning to reach out and just keep not doing it - hi. The link is at sarahgray.com/contact. It takes two minutes and that's the hardest part.
Can we talk about the matching family photo?

I'm not against it in principle. I've seen it work. But I'll be honest with you: identical outfits can flatten the individuality of each person in the frame. Everyone ends up looking like a set instead of a family.

What I always encourage is coordinated, not matching.

Cohesion without uniformity. Everyone looks like they belong in the same photo - but each person still looks like themselves. Mom isn't dressed like a grown up version of her daughter. Dad doesn't look like he raided his son's closet.

The goal is harmony, not a uniform.

A few ways to pull this off without overthinking it: start with one anchor piece - usually mom's outfit - and build the palette outward from there. Repeat one or two colors across the group without repeating the exact same clothing. Let textures and silhouettes vary.

The result is a family photo that actually looks like your family.
It's the night before your session.

You've had weeks to plan this. Weeks. And yet here you are, every piece of clothing you own spread across the bed, asking your partner if navy and olive 'go together' and Googling 'what to wear for family photos' at 10:47pm.

Completely normal. You are not alone. I have heard this story more times than I can count, and it almost always has a happy ending.

But if you're in the planning phase right now and not yet in the panic phase - this is your sign to take thirty minutes this week and actually sort it out. Future you will be so relieved.

And if you're my client, you have a lot of info at your fingertips in the Prep Guide sent to you when you booked with me.
Here's the framework I share with every family I work with:

The location is the canvas. Your family is the subject. Your clothing is the paint.

Get the paint right, and everything comes together. Rush it, and even a beautiful Tallahassee evening can fall a little flat in the final images.

That doesn't mean you need a stylist or a big budget. It means you need a plan and a few principles that actually hold up in real life - with real kids and real closets.

Start with a neutral base. Creams, tans, soft whites, warm grays. These anchor your palette and keep the focus on faces and connection, which is the whole point.

From there, bring in color intentionally. Neutrals with soft blues. Neutrals with blush or sage. Warmer tones in fall - mauve, khaki, olive - especially at a location like Alford Park, where the foliage does a lot of work for you.

Add texture wherever you can. A knit next to a satin blouse. A linen shirt next to a tweed jacket. Texture creates visual depth in a way that flat, solid fabrics just don't. It's one of those things that reads beautifully in prints and most families don't hear about until someone tells them.

Keep patterns small if you use them at all. A delicate floral, a fine stripe, a subtle check - all great. Large, bold patterns pull focus away from faces, and that's never what we're going for.

Outfit planning is one of the highest-leverage things you can do before your session. I promise it's worth the attention.

Memberships and Affiliations

Sarah Gray Photography | Professional Photographer of America Member
Sarah Gray Photography | The Motherhood Anthology Member
National Association of Professional Child Photographers Member 2026-2027

Sarah Gray creates timeless and joyful images that are designed for living room walls and photo albums. A tallahassee photographer, Sarah Gray also serves Thomasville, Crawfordville, St. Marks, Gainesville and throughout the Forgotten Coast and panhandle of north Florida and south Georgia.

email us | sarah@sarahgray.com

telephone (850) 328-3258

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located in tallahassee, florida