Some clients hold a special place in your heart.  BC is one of them.  For so very many reasons.  Her mom is my children’s Sunday school director and she coos and plays with all three of them as if they were her own. For another, BC and her sister babysit my children, never flinching when the sum total of my detailed instructions are “just use your judgement or figure it out–bye!”    And this family is just all-around SWEET.  I’m not sure how families get that way, but this one is incredibly gracious and fun.

We wound up doing a couple of shoots – one “for real’ and one for fun (and to get back a few moments we lost to what will be forever burned in my brain as the most eventful evening in recent sessions – love your adventurous spirit, BC!).

And, BC, I want to know – who says redheads can’t pull off red?

ps.  just one more (I loved them all):

This is me.  A split second in front of the camera and all of a sudden I was reminded how incredibly vulnerable it is!  I have a history with the F. family, and now they are seeing BOTH daughters through a right of passage – BC (pictured here) about to enter her senior year, and their oldest – engaged!  I am fortunate enough to get to capture this special time in pictures…

Tonight after our session, Mama F. got our picture.  And I freaked.  “My crappy hair!”  In that instant I remembered what it feels like to be all girly and self-conscious.  Which lasted for about a nano-second before I remembered that I am so BEYOND a comb and primping.   So  instead I channeled my inner “fughetaboutit” and enjoyed the fact that I didn’t have to hold the camera for once…

Thanks for a great evening, ladies of the F. Family!

I’m not sure what it all means…maybe Andrea will fill us in.  But go over and congratulate her!!!

First of all, she wore those shoes.  That in itself deserved a photo shoot.  But, more importantly, I was super-proud of her.  Sixteen years.  That’s how long it took to get to this point.  And for the last two – as I spent many hours in coffee shops and book stores to get my own stuff off the ground – I would run into her pretty frequently, and she was always working feverishly on something.

But besides that, I’ve had a chance to hear just some of her story.   I kept thinking about her strength and sheer will as I photographed her.  I don’t know all of my clients well, but there is often some happy, proud, or profound moment that I witness in my camera that makes me pause.   As I clicked away, all I could think about was S’s determination.  Not just to get through school.  But to get through life.  This is a face of strength:

I wish more women would see what I see sometimes.  I know enough to watch out for decent angles, and straying lipstick…but what I really see, when a client is relaxed enough, is often a whole lot more than a portrait.

************

It was a short session and a single location, but S and I had a lot of fun.  Including the surprise blackberry bush we found that had somehow managed to sprout out of the side of a very urban building.  Fitting, actually.  And, of course, S was totally game when I suggested we stop for a quick snack:

Congratulations, Girl!  You deserve whatever success and happiness comes your way.

Isn’t it a lovely capture?  It’s not mine.  It’s my friend Andrea’s – vote for her image at My Army Life - look for a blue button to the left and her picture is #673.

Who’s Andrea?  She’s a wonderful baker/photographer/mother/friend who I met four or five years ago and have mostly known online – although I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her and her sweet, sweet family in person (here I am pregnant teetering on a bar stool while her husband is spotting me):

She’s always been supportive of me, and I want to be supportive of her, so if you have time for a couple of clicks over coffee and Internet browsing this morning, hop over and give her image some love.

I’m a big fan of The Lovey.  When photographing children, I often ask the parents to bring along his or her favorite “lovey.”  I can almost hear the mom’s nose scrunching up on the other end of the phone: “Oh, I don’t know.  That old thing is so ratty I’m not sure I want it in the pictures.”   I understand why it seems unusual.  But I’m a born story-teller.  That’s what I’m hired to do – create images that showcase your family where they are at this moment. The well-loved puppy or blankie is one way to tell your little one’s story.

Thankfully, my clients trust my instincts.  And it never fails; these are often some of their favorite images.  So don’t be afraid to bring along that tired, ratty doll.  It’s precious to them, which will be precious to you.

I find it hard to believe that it’s already been three years.  Three years at a WONDERFUL gem of a preschool we were lucky to find.  Perhaps even better than how they treated my little girl was how they have treated me.  It has been a hectic few years.  They’ve witnessed two additional pregnancies and have been so gracious to me, never judging me when I show up ten, okay – fifteen – minutes late for school, even letting Ashlyn join in on the activities when I show up early.  They’re a wonderful group of teachers and I highly recommend the school – both for the progressive curriculum and their lovely hearts.

Thank You, Mrs. Butler, Mrs. Howard, and Mrs. Cannon, for getting my daughter to this proud moment, for embracing our family’s quirks, and for loving E and being a wonderful presence in her daily life these last three years.  I credit you with this smile:

I’m proud of you, Baby Girl.

She hired me to take pictures of her girls.  But considering how rarely moms get to have their picture taken, I couldn’t help it.  I think maybe everyone needs a great picture of themselves, don’t you?

So when I told her to sit on the stairs, she instinctively called to her daughter.  “No,” I insisted.  “Just you.”

And this is us trying to do a cheesy pose with a rose, but darned if you can even see past how pretty she is to see how cheesy this could have been.  I bet if I were in the picture it would have looked plenty cheesed out.

‘“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.” - Dave Barry

I’m not a risk-taker.  I hate being bad at things, I hate the thought of something not turning out as I imagined it, and I just plain hate not being able to control things.  Most people know this about me.  Which is why it’s kind of hilarious that I was ever an Army wife.  Or that I started a small business.  Or that I have three children.

When I ran across this quote on a friend’s page, it made me smile.  So I just had to share it with you – maybe offer some encouragement about the things in you’re life you’re afraid to try.  I’ve had the chance to try several new things in the past few years.  Which makes me wonder what I’ve missed out on some of these years by not just taking a leap and being okay with the possibility of failure.

From one of my first shoots as a Photographer:

My first paid contribution as a freelance writer and craft designer:

And, finally, maybe what I’m most proud of – the “something new” we didn’t know we desperately needed to complete our family, until God surprised us with him:

I wonder if there’s a Something New you’re waiting to try…

[republished from my personal blog at mylongestyear.com]

So, as a photographer, one of the most important things to me, when taking someone’s picture, is to capture the person genuinely, and beautifully.  But it’s hard.  Because people are so self-conscious. About their scratches and scars and ears.  And it’s just plain difficult to relax sometimes.  I get it.  I’m one of those, too.  I have a disproportionate nose, skinny arms, two eyes that are completely different shapes, and an on-again-off-again double chin (depending on my trimester in pregnancy, or the number of months following).

You’ll remember I went to Nashville a while ago.  I stayed with my best friend’s parents – a dear couple I lived with for over two years in college.  I sat down for breakfast with Jim, chit-chatted a bit, and brought out my new camera (oh, yeah, I got a new camera).  He’s a bit of a photographer himself so I let him play.

Now, mind you, I’d had little sleep and no shower, and for some reason I’m going through some adult acne phase.  So the pictures were terrible, right?  Yes.  And no.

Well, yes, because I basically look terrible and greasy grody.  But in the end, no.  When Jim flipped through the pictures his eyes lit up and he was absolutely tickled.  “Ah, these are cute!” (Jim, a bigshot VP at a Fortune 10 Company almost squealed).  And I can see why.

For one, I was careful to take my own advice and relax as he snapped away.  And for another, I was careful to not pick myself apart.  These pictures are me.  Really me.  There are zits here.  And a straying bra strap.  And hair that needs serious help.  But  these are genuine expressions and it shines through.  And Jim, who loves me and has known me since I was seventeen, looked at these pictures and saw the beautiful me he knows.  No, he didn’t say all that.  But I recognized a familiar mix of pride and delight as he scrolled through the images he’d taken.

I am all-too familiar with people picking apart a beautiful photo of themselves because there is some phantom acne, or squishy part, or one ear is more red than the other.  In some cases, folks start the picking apart ritual before they’ve even been photographed.

Do yourself and the photographer a favor: stop it.  You look great.

And when you do get a chance to shower, and put on a decent shirt, and then choose to RELAX and get over whatever injustice you think you’ve been physically dealt, you get some really great photos:

[Photos set up and edited by me, but taken by my dear friend Melissa Wells, who did a great job]

I am not photogenic (have you SEEN my honker for a nose?), and I was careful to not edit any of the photos in this post too much.  Only slight contrast was added for color.  And if you pick them apart you can see wrinkles and veins and stray hair.  Whatever.  Who cares?  I didn’t.

You shouldn’t either.