Waukee Business Profile: Yana Glezina Photography

If you ask Angela Miale, her picture on this year's Christmas card will be one of the truest representations of her family.

Seated together in a grassy, park-like area, there's Angela, her husband, Mike, and their daughter, Ellie, all smiling for the camera, as son, Henry, 3, appears to be sprinting out of the frame.

"It's not ideal, but it really captures the essence of our family," Miale said. "It's nothing I would have ever requested, but it was perfect."

That's the beauty of photographer Yana Gelzina's work, say many of her clients. Her style is less posed and more natural, giving families photographs that seem to capture real life.

Glezina, of Waukee, specializes in children and newborn photography, shooting using only natural light and wide open spaces where kids can be well, kids. No stuffy studio or awkward poses for this photographer.

"I like taking pictures of children because they’re so real," Glezina said. "If they’re mad, if they're happy, the expressions you get from them are honest. When you look back at the pictures you can tell what they were doing or how they felt. You can’t make a child smile if they don’t want to."

Glezina, a mostly self-taught photographer, started taking pictures professionally in 2008. Motivated by her own children and a love of taking pictures, Glezina says she decided to branch out and began photographing her friends' families as a way to gain more experience.

"Taking pictures of my own kids started getting boring, so I would practice on my friends' kids," she said. "They were so generous. Because of them, I started to learn more and more about how to interact with kids to get better pictures."

Today, Glezina, also a stay-at-home mom of two, shoots only four to six sessions a month which means investing more time and attention to getting the best photographs. She shoots mostly outdoors for the natural light so weather is often her biggest obstacle.

While photographing children is her hallmark, Glezina says she's also shooting family pictures following the same philosophy that works with children — let them be themselves.

"What’s really fun is to capture that connection between the parents and kids," she said.

That's why Angie Bower of Des Moines came to Glezina. She and her family were some of Yana's first practice subjects four years ago and have been back almost every year since.

"We come back to Yana because she really knows how to deal with kids," Bower said. "She always gets really natural photos of them and they look like my kids — they look like they're having fun and she captures them perfectly."

For more information about Yana Glezina Photography, check out her website at YanaGlezina.com, call (515) 494-0773 or e-mail yanaglezina@gmail.com.