Photos by Ariel

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United States
Lincoln, IL
Photos by Ariel

Newborn, family, and wedding photographer located in Central Illinois!
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09/04/2026

A little note about your images + AI 🤍

I want my clients to know that, anywhere I have control over these settings, I have disabled visual search features and opted out of settings that allow my images/content to be used for AI development or training.

Your photographs were created to document you, your family, your relationships, and your memories — not to become training material for generative AI.

Obviously, I can’t control every aspect of how the internet or individual platforms operate, but I can use every privacy and AI-related setting available to me to protect the images you’ve trusted me with.

As technology continues to change, I’ll continue paying attention to those settings and choosing the options that prioritize my clients, their privacy, and the integrity of the photographs I create. 🤍

09/01/2026

Family photos with a toddler are approximately 10% “everyone look at me!” and 90% seeing what happens next. 😂

We run. We explore. We pick flowers. We get tossed in the air. We point at VERY important things. We boop Dad’s nose. We attempt to escape the blanket approximately 37 times.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that chaos, we get this. 🥹

The belly laughs. The tiny hand wrapped around yours. The way he looks at you when you’re being silly. His little personality at this exact age—before it changes again seemingly overnight.

You don’t need perfectly behaved kids for beautiful family photos.

You just need to show up, love on them, play with them, and let me worry about the rest. 🤍

08/25/2026

POV: you make something incredibly difficult look effortless. 🩰

08/24/2026

Sometimes, as a mom, it feels like I spend so much of my time managing childhood instead of actually being in it.

Get your shoes on please.
Where’s your backpack?
Did you brush your teeth?
Is that how we talk to one another?
What do you need for tomorrow?
Did you do your homework?

We are managing schedules. Managing emotions.
Managing messes and meals and mornings and a thousand other things that somehow all belong to us.

And lately I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to become so busy taking care of our kids that we forget to just be with them.

To sit beside them in a feeling instead of trying to fix it.

To listen to the story that takes approximately 47 years to get to the point. 😂

To notice the way their nose scrunches when they laugh. To let them climb into our laps even though they’re getting way too big. To linger longer in the hug at drop off. ➡️To stop thinking about what needs to happen next and just exist together for a minute.⬅️

Because childhood is happening right there in all of it.

And maybe that’s part of why I love photographing families so much.

For just a little while, nobody has to manage childhood.

You don’t have to remember. You don’t need to manage or manufacture anything. You don’t need to think about what’s next. You just have to be there with them in that moment and feel all of it.

Love them. Hold them. Chase them. Laugh with them. Let them feel whatever they’re feeling.

And I’ll remember it for you. ❤️

Because someday you’ll discover the truth that Im currently living… ALL those things that felt so ordinary… those will be the things you’d give literally anything to experience just one more time.

So while we’re here, let’s be in it. ❤️

08/20/2026

Just a sweet little family session celebrating what is and what’s to come. Scroll through to see the surprise. 🥹🦖🤍

08/18/2026

Just a few of 𝙲𝚊𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚊 𝙸𝚛𝚋𝚢 and Dillon’s *dark and moody* engagement session! 😍

08/15/2026

Mama,

I know you don’t feel like yourself right now.

Nothing fits the way it used to.
You haven’t slept in weeks.
But more than that, your brain just underwent a massive transformation called Matrescence. It’s a massive identity shift that occurs with pregnancy and childbirth similar to the one adolescent’s go through.
But just because it’s normal, doesn’t mean it isn’t disorienting.
In short, matrescence is the messy, beautiful, complicated, and often overwhelming journey into motherhood.
So getting photos can feel extra hard during this time.
But here’s the truth.
Over the next year, all the puzzle pieces will fall into place.
You will come to know your child and you will come to know this new version of yourself.
And even though you may not love what you see in the mirror and the concept of who you are feels a bit iffy at the moment. One day, your child is going to look at these photos and they won’t see what you saw in the mirror or the confusing pieces of what you felt inside you.
➡️ They will see their mom. And they will feel the safest they’ve ever felt. ⬅️ The mom who’s been showing up for them before they even arrived and every single day after. Even when she had nothing left. 💛

The photos you don’t take are the ones you’ll miss the most.

08/13/2026

“Can I get some photos of just me,” she asked at the end of her family photo session.

My heart skipped a beat. 💓 My eyes lit up. I felt so excited. 🤩

“Of course!” I said.

I later wondered why such a simple request inspired such a big emotional response in me and I think it’s because it NEVER happens. Beyond the wedding day, and sometimes even before that, solo images of ourselves feel… weird, awkward, PEAK levels of uncomfortable.

We feel vulnerable, uncertain, and insecure in our changing bodies. Sometimes it feels as vulnerable as being naked in front of a camera. But the reality is…

YOU are worth remembering.
The way your body moves and breathes when it’s not holding anyone else.
The way your nose wrinkles when you laugh, or the lines that form around your eyes with every smile.
The way your shoulders relax and your teeth unclench as the stress of managing everyone and everything melts away even for just a moment.
It’s all worth remembering.

Not just you as someone’s mother.
Someone’s partner.
Someone’s daughter.
Someone’s safe place.
Someone’s everything.

You, belonging entirely to yourself.

We spend so much of our lives documenting the people we love because we’re terrified of forgetting them. But someday, the people who love you will go looking for photographs, too.

And I hope they find more than evidence that you were there.

I hope they find you.

So yes.

Please ask me for the photos of just you. ❤️

Address

112 5th Street
Lincoln, IL
62656

Website

http://www.photosbyariel.com/

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