Rachel Rossetti Photography

03/11/2026

Golden hour newborn session? An easy yes.

https://www.rachelrossetti.com/newborn

03/08/2026

📸✨Save the date for Spring Studio Minis on Sunday, April 12! ✨ I’m hosting motherhood, headshot and personality minis at the brand new in Bellevue, and booking goes out to my mailing list TOMORROW (3/9) at 9 am. Hop on the mailing list at the link in my profile to get first dibs. These are going to be so dreamy, and galleries delivered well in time for Mother’s Day! Whether you’re looking for , or need updated headshots, or want timeless black and white personality portraits of the kids, these are it. So excited to see what kind of magic we cook up together ✨

02/26/2026

Brooke is a senior at Shaler High School, and we worked together one gorgeous golden hour in early September for her senior photos at Mellon Park! It was one of my favorite nights all year, and I'm so excited to finally be sharing her session on the blog! After high school school, Brooke is hoping to go to college to become a sonogram technician, a job I have a tremendous amount of respect and gratitude for after God placed some incredibly empathetic sonogram technicians in my own life. She is so vibrant and fun and confident that it was immediately clear she’s the type of person who would achieve any goal she set out for herself.

I give credit for Brooke introducing me to my first Labubu— never before had I seen something that straddled the line of horrifying and adorable so effectively. She had one on her purse, and though now I see them everywhere and the jump scare is a little less, I’m afraid I’m still not much closer to understanding. So we established that yes I am old, but also: no matter the decade, teenagers continue to be, as ever, so completely cool and weird.

Some people may look at me a little crazy, but I love teens — for quite a bit of time in college I was studying to be a high school English teacher because I love working with teenagers! Life took a different path for me, but I'm so grateful I can still work with humans in this stage of life. Everything is so full of possibility and sarcasm and confidence and contradictions and wonder. I will never get tired of making cool and sometimes weird and never boring senior photos with them. Like this incredible golden hour in early September with Brooke— one of my absolute favorite nights.

Mellon Park is one of my favorite spots in Pittsburgh for senior photos. From the fountain on the green grassy lawn, to the stone wall architecture, to the wrought-iron gates, to the gorgeous flowers lining stone-paved walkways: we always make a gorgeous, and completely unique-to-you senior portrait

02/12/2026

New on the blog! (Wow, I haven't said those words in awhile!). Meet Kenzey, an absolutely stunning senior from Upper St. Clair and varsity cross country star (that's right, she runs on purpose). I don’t really understand it myself, but she seems to be quite excellent at it 😉. Kenzey and I went to Hartwood Acres Mansion at golden hour for her senior portrait session and had the absolute best time.

Kenzey is the type of kid who I just marvel at, thinking “your mom must be so proud of you!” She has a strength and bearing beyond her years— a well-earned confidence from her leadership in cross country, and clearly a supportive family who loves her and has given her a strong foundation. These are the things that will serve her for her whole life long. Next year she’ll be taking her talents to Kutztown University where she’ll be studying Art Education, and I am so excited to follow along and cheer on this special girl!

Hartwood Acres Mansion was the perfect backdrop for this golden hour senior session in Pittsburgh. With a blend of classic English flower gardens and stunning architecture, we created a diverse gallery of beautiful and artistic portraits that are full of personality!

12/11/2025

No greater gift under the tree ✨🎄 As the mama to a December baby myself, I know how special these cozy days around the holidays are, breathing in baby skin and having to look no further than your arms to find all the wonder and magic in the world ✨(it’s all the December Birthday PARTIES that make it tricky, but don’t worry, that’s just every single year moving forward 🫣😆)

11/18/2025

I blinked and it’s mid-November. My shooting schedule is wrapping up for the season (just a few makeup minis to go!) - though the editing has ramped up around the clock now. Thank you to all of my amazing families for your patience while I work through your galleries. The shoot itself is just the first part of the magic-making…but I promise that it will be worth the wait! There are so many of your incredibly precious moments in these hard drives of mine right now, and it is with joy and awe and gratitude (and powered by coffee and podcasts) that I am editing each and every single one of your tender memories. Sometimes I lose track of time and I realize that my cheeks hurt because I’ve been smiling like a fool all by myself as I take in your joy. How cool is that? That at the tail-end of an intensive season I could be that good, satisfied kind of bone-tired, just losing myself in happiness while I work. That’s a pretty lucky job. ⁣
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This family is one of those who made my cheeks hurt extra. Love getting to see this crew grow year after year. From mama— “Rachel, I love love the photos. They are more beautiful and stunning than I imagined. Fall colors, leaves and sky are just magical. This session is so far my absolute favorite. Thank you!”
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Here’s to making each new year the best yet ✨

11/10/2025

Did you catch those snowflakes this morning?? Wasn’t it just 80 degrees two weeks ago? It’s just as well; this is my last big week of fall family sessions for the 2025 season! 🎉 And while outdoor family sessions are starting to wind down for the year….my inbox has been suddenly heating up with newborn session inquiries. I don’t know what’s in the water but I’m not complaining: this January/February/March is starting to fill up for newborn sessions and I am so excited for a Winter Full of Babies™ (trademark pending). Nothing beats the winter blues like these squishy little faces. If you are due this in the next few months, let’s chat….soon!

10/15/2025

It took a little longer this year, but it’s finally starting to feel like fall out there 🍂 getting to photograph the BEST families in this gorgeous scenery is the icing on the cake. Scratch that; the crunchy to my leaves?? The cinnamon to my latte. The cable-knit to my sweater. The butternut squash to every recipe that shouldn’t actually include squash but somehow still totally works(???) In other words, the most wonderful time of the year🍁

10/10/2025

This little girl was in her mama’s belly the first time I worked with her family. And I’ve gotten to see her grow up, become a big sister, all the while radiating absolute sunshine. What a gift! In fact, I have to say that the majority of the families in front of my camera this fall are families I have worked with for years and years. They keep inviting me back, allowing me to grow as an artist alongside them. ⁣
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When I work with families I’ve had the joy of knowing for many years, it always takes me back to a quote I read from Celeste Ng when my own son was an infant. I’m a dog-ear, kindle-highlighter, pencil-underlined with exclamation points in the margins kind of reader. When a passage grips my heart I make sure to tuck it away to meditate on again and again. And this passage from Ng is an idea that hit me right in the tender postpartum mama heart, and just continues to become truer and truer as my own babies grow up. ⁣
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“To a parent, your child wasn’t just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all at the same time. You could see it every time you looked at her: layered in her face was the baby she’d been and the child she’d become and the adult she would grow up to be, and you saw them all simultaneously, like a 3-D image.”⁣
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Your photographer sees it too, a little bit. I’m always looking through my lens with the heart of a mama, after all. The baby she was, the toddler she was, the little girl she is, the young lady she’ll become. What a gift to create these snapshots of your most treasured places.

09/29/2025

10/10 would recommend playing telephone at your family session. Can you believe the monkey ate his own shorts?? No wait, that can’t be right….⁣
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Always laughing with this fam 🥰

08/15/2025

Friends, I’m blown away! The release to my full family calendar was more than I ever imagined. As of this morning, there are just a smattering of dates left in September, 1 in October, and 2 in November. Other than that, I am SET for the season with full family sessions, which is a sentence I didn’t think I would ever utter in mid-August. THANK YOU for such an enthusiastic release. I am so grateful to you all, and so thrilled to see so many of my favorite faces in front of my lens again this fall ✨

That DOES mean, if you want an hour long session to give your family the space to make some creative magic, with control over the time and the place (like, say, sunrise on Mt. Washington. In November) don’t wait! Email me, check out on my calendar, and see if our schedules align. I don’t think these are going to hang around much longer.

STILL TO COME: The magic words, Mini Sessions! Now that I have a solid view of my full family session calendar, I will be able to nail down those mini session dates. I’m considering 1 date in September, 2 in October, and then tree farm dates in November. I know so many of you are excited to get on that list, so I will announce those here on social media before they head out to inboxes so that you can plan to snag a spot!

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU! For trusting me, cheering me on, supporting me. Family photography is a service, AND an art. And it’s collaborative, which means that you are an enormous part of the equation. I am so lucky to have people who love so deeply in my corner of the universe, making this job such an immense joy.