Hello and welcome to my site! My name is Rachel, so of course, I am the one behind Rachel Leah Photography on Facebook and @Rachel.Leah.Creates.Stuff on Instagram (I’d love to meet you there, so don’t forget to say hi if you see me around your feed!)

Rachel Leah Photography has been in business for eleven years - and I personally have delved deep into the art of photography and digital art for the past twenty years. For the first decade of the business, I specialized in portrait photography - focusing on newborns, children, and families! It’s been such a pleasure to watch so many amazing families grow, from those who trusted me with their family’s memories in my tiny home studios, all the way to a studio of my own.

In the past year the business has began to morph and change and grow into something new - as my own life has changed along with it. With all those changes, my current specialty is in creating Artistic Composites for families and children all over the world - most of which you can see on my Instagram account. It has been amazing to continue creating for the family’s and children I’ve I’ve work with locally this past decade (some since their first week of life!), while also being able to create for and connect with new families from all different continents, countries, and states!

My focus in composites began at an early age, but was forced to grow when I became a mom and discovered I had a child who, of course, did not want to ever stay still. I would try traditional studio sessions with him and we’d all end up a little more stressed than when we began! From there I dropped the stress of studio sessions of him and just kept photo graphing and documenting our everyday lives.

If an effort to help him fall asleep in peace, we would have long bedtime chats and your basic creative think-tanks, coming up with all the amazing happy places we would visit in our mind as we waited to fall asleep. For a little boy (and mom) who deals with all sorts of anxiety, the deal was that our “happy place” had to simply be amazing and make us feel at peace. That meant some nights we would choose to go swim with beluga whales, or other nights he’d ride on the back of an owl, or ride a hot air balloon made of bubbles, and snuggle with bears that’d keep him warm and safe until he fell asleep. These hours of creating magical worlds led me to begin to create those worlds for him so he could remember them and have visual reminders of all the happiness and beauty his mind had inside of it.

I started sharing with friends and family, and eventually began to creates for others, and now I am so privileged to be able to create something magical for so many children to hold onto to remind them of how strong, creative, beautiful, silly, and brave they really are.

For each composite, I give the parents a questionnaire, and it has been beautiful to be able to “meet” so many cool kids through the eyes of the ones that love them most!

If you think you may know of a child that deserves a little bit of fun magic in their lives, feel free to look around the shop at possible themes (all of which can be customized). If you are not sure what exactly you’d want, but want something nonetheless, just contact me and we can chat about your cool kid and what kind of photo they might love! I can work with all photos - cell phone shots, photos from fancy DSLRs, and EVEN screenshots from videos (again, thanks to my child who never stops moving, I often resort to just videoing him playing and then use screen shots from those)!

I also recently began creating book cover art - which can be seen over on Amazon!

On a random, personal note, the following facts are also true:

- I am an adoptive mom to my amazing boy (adopted from foster care)!

- We are in the homeschooling world now

- I was born and raised on Long Island, but spent a few years living in several different countries including New Zealand, Fiji, and Samoa.

- I have one dog, two box turtles, and ten sugar gliders. At any given time, a glider is usually hidden somewhere on me during the day (in a pocket, in my shirt, snuggling wherever they can). And man… let me know if you’re ever interested in owning one also, because a certain couple over here has babies like it’s nobody’s business! Extra fun fact: I am one of those super nerds who has an Instagram for her pets, so you can see them here: @wockets.in.my.pockets

- My actual degree is in Social Work

- There is so much more, but I’ll leave it at this: I like anything to do with cheese, podcasts, ranch dressing, potatoes, mental health, dandelions, real people, owls, aurora borealis, fireflies, buttercream icing, and beluga whales… probably not all at once… but I’m open to it.

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