Magical is not the only word I’d use to describe Annie Whitaker’s photography. But it certainly belongs at the top.
Picture this: You want your three-year-old photographed with real chickens and purple tulips. So naturally, you call Annie.
She is entirely unfazed.
She tells you she can hatch the chicks. She can plant the tulips. When you ask what your toddler should wear, she suggests an authentic 1920s overall set, or perhaps something nostalgic from the 1950s. Before long, you’re discussing Amalfi paper, richly textured finishes, and hand-carved Montparnasse frames.
Welcome to the magical world of Annie Leibovitz—pardon me, Annie Whitaker—the Northshore photographer who goes to extraordinary lengths to transform childhood into heirloom art.
Where the Magic Happens
When I arrive for the interview, Annie’s studio is already staged for her 10:00 a.m. newborn session.
“I’ve got pastries for the parents because I know they’re going to rush out of the house with the newborn and not eat,” she says, handing me a massive cinnamon roll.
This, I quickly learn, is very Annie.
She shows me the prize bag she set aside for the newborn’s big sister. “I want her to feel that this is as much about her as it is about the baby,” Annie says.
“I cater to my clients. Whatever they see on my website that they love, we can create. Everything in my pictures is real. We just planted three hundred daffodil bulbs, and I’m about to install an incubator for one of my April clients who really wants chicks.”
Children don’t just pose for her; they swing, pick flowers, and play with animals. “Kids have fun here,” she says. “Sometimes they ask, ‘Can we spend the night at Ms. Annie’s?’”
Around me are thousands of vintage children’s clothes Annie finds on her travels and in antique stores. Many are fragile.
“I do a lot of mending,” she says, “but it’s worth it.”
Annie stitches that same hands-on instinct through her work. Her studio, built by her husband, is part atelier, part archive, with Italian papers, painted backdrops from Poland, and antique French potter’s boards, still dusted with white clay.
“Where did all this begin?” I ask, still contemplating chicks hatched on demand.
She points to a portrait in the corner.
“That’s my great-grandmother, taken in 1900. It’s a treasure. And that’s what I want to create: treasures that families can keep for the next century.”
Who Is Annie Whitaker?
The answer begins in Mandeville.
She first fell in love with photography in high school, back when film had to be developed in a dark room. Her grandmother posed for her, patiently letting Annie practice until she got it right.
“Here’s a picture of my grandma,” she says. “She’s blurry because I really wasn’t good at focusing.”
By college, Annie's focus had shifted to science. With little time left for photography, she turned her attention to laboratories, research, and, eventually, a PhD in physiology. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience and built a serious academic career before stepping away in 2015. Her work ran through LSU’s alcohol research center, where she studied stress, addiction, and trauma in the brain. She still keeps one foot in science, teaching dual-enrollment biology at St. Scholastica Academy through Southeastern Louisiana University.
“I feel like my process as an artist has a very scientific mind behind it,” she says. “From the first planning appointment to the finished portrait, I take a scientific approach to everything.”
How the Magic Is Made
That scientific approach helps explain why Annie’s work, for all its fairy-tale softness, feels so precise. She is both artist and alchemist, she still paints by hand, just digitally. “That’s where I put my magical touch on it,” she says.
The transformation begins long before the camera clicks. Every family starts with a design consultation. Annie pulls wardrobes, reviews props and backdrops, and later displays digital mockups on the client’s own walls.
“My goal is to give you timeless art you can pass down to your kids,” she says. “Something to make you smile thirty years down the line when they’re grown.”
Beauty, Inherited
To show me how she hangs her own artwork, Annie walks from the studio to her house, past a rope swing hanging from oaks and a fallen trunk that bends like a rainbow—the perfect spot for a child to sit.
Inside, everything feels hyper-custom: European doors, salvaged New Orleans doorknobs, and French sketches. She shows me a photograph of her grandmother, who was from Cuba. “She left in 1961 with her young daughters,” Annie says, “She sacrificed so much for her children and future grandchildren.”
Elsewhere, framed photographs hang beside old-world antiques, relics, and books yellow enough to be worth reading. The walls are charcoal, not stark white. “Iron Ore by Sherwin-Williams,” she says.
And that doesn’t surprise me coming from an artist of Annie’s caliber, someone who prefers things with a touch of patina and a little soul left in them.
The Brief Kingdom of Childhood
Annie works hard to ensure her sessions feel like play rather than performance.
“Don’t think of it as a photo session,” she tells parents. “Instead, think of it like bringing the kids to Ms. Annie’s. ‘We’re gonna go play at her studio,’ and I just happen to be there with my camera.”
“And why should parents call you to photograph their children?” I ask.
She pauses, perhaps reflecting on her own two daughters.
“You’ve got like a ten-year window to do something special with them. And trust me, that window closes fast.
She pauses, perhaps reflecting on her own two daughters. The years of chubby knees, garden games, and unquestioned belief—those disappear in the blink of an eye. Capture the magic while there’s still time.”
THE YEARS THAT VANISH FIRST
Not wanting to delay Annie’s upcoming photoshoot, I make my way back to the car. But as I prepare to leave her magical kingdom, a line penned by another Annie, the poet Anne Sexton, comes to mind:
“And we are magic talking to itself.”
But Annie’s kind of magic doesn’t speak only to itself. It speaks to all of us—a gift handed down by a grandmother who left Cuba decades ago so future generations could live out their dreams. Now Annie passes that gift on to us, conjuring joy and gratitude in families across the Northshore.
Photography, after all, is a moment already gone. A brief second in the past.
Annie understands that better than most. She builds small worlds around children, turning their most fleeting years into enduring heirlooms.
In an age that can feel flattened, hurried, and strangely forgetful, Annie Whitaker reminds us that beauty still depends on memory, that children grow up quickly, and that the future is only as rich as what we choose to preserve from the past.
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Annie Whitaker Photography
Annie Whitaker is a Covington fine art photographer specializing in newborn, baby, child, family, and heirloom portraiture. Her full-service studio creates customized sessions, vintage styling, and museum-quality artwork designed to live in the home for generations. Parents can explore her portfolio and enquire about a session by visiting her website, emailing anniewhitakerphotography@gmail.com, or calling (985) 966-7251. Her studio is located at 75732 Military Road, Covington. Follow Annie’s work online, schedule a consultation, and begin creating portrait art for your family that preserves your child’s fleeting years with beauty, tenderness, craftsmanship, and lasting wonder.
anniewhitakerphotography.com / @anniewhitakerphotography
"I want to create treasures that families can keep for the next century."
“Don’t think of it as a photo session. Think of it like bringing the kids to Ms. Annie’s. ‘We’re gonna go play at her studio,’ and I just happen to be there with my camera.”