Durham Family Photographer

Carolyn Scott is a Durham family photographer. She specializes in candid and documentary at-home family photography in the Triangle area (Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Cary, etc). Carolyn’s work has been published in several popular books and magazines, including Apartment Therapy, BuzzFeed, and Fangoria. Locally, she’s been voted Best Photographer in Durham Magazine’s Best Of Durham and INDY Week’s Best of the Triangle. She lives in South Durham with her husband Geoff and three cats.

At Home with Dena+Richard // A Family Session

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Fall is our favorite. And it’s even more our favorite when we walk up to a house to photograph a family session and a six-year-old werewolf answers the door. Meet Dena (mom), Richard (dad), Abi (Pocahontas), and Jacob (werewolf)! They spent their day-in-the-life family session carving pumpkins, doing dance routines in the living room, splashing in puddles, and exercising some serious restraint in not cuddling their cat Snickers too hard.

The first thing we noticed is that everyone was American except dad who had an awesome British accent. So naturally we asked how he found himself to be living in North Carolina with a werewolf and a Pocahontas and it turns out that him and Dena were pen pals when they were young! Legit pen pals! Anyone who’s probably borderline thirty and older remembers this… but you used to be like, “Oh hey, I wonder what it would be like to exchange letters with kids in other parts of the world and hear about their culture and country. Let me get involved in a group that exchanges addresses with other kids!” At the time this was completely normal and safe, but it turns out that you learned less about culture and countries and more just about how middle school actually sucks no matter what part of the world you live in. But anyway, that’s how they met, and eventually when they were in college they actually met in real life, and now they both live in NC with their kids and cat and this one other cat that isn’t actually theirs but comes around a lot. They like the Counting Crows surprisingly as much as we do (a rare breed).

Abi and Jacob are seriously good, polite, well-behaved children who actually seem to enjoy each other’s company despite being relatively close in age and a boy and girl (the only sign of dissent was a large poster hanging from Abi’s bedroom door that said “Unless Emergency DO NOT come in NOTICE NOW” that she informed me was directed at her brother). At one point Abi was using a suction-cup bow and arrow set while Jacob got out his rubber-band gun, and nobody aimed their weapon at the other’s head, which I found incredibly impressive. So A+ parenting, Dena and Richard! We enjoy your crew immensely.

At Home with Lindsey+Jacques // A Family Session

Geoff and I are absolutely thrilled to be doing our “Day in the Life” family lifestyle sessions! It’s very us, and we have a ton of fun. On this particular adventure, our task was to document the whole family (mom, dad, two grandmas, two grandpas, and an aunt and uncle) as they celebrated the third birthday of their very special fairy soccer princess, Elizabeth. We were invited into their home and had the great opportunity to document tea parties, bubble blowing competitions, the unwrapping of birthday gifts, mad coloring book skills, and even a game of soccer in the park. Elizabeth is one of the most well-behaved and precious children we’ve encountered, but we were also told that her demeanor on the day of our visit was a fluke (or possibly caused by us simply being there, in which case we could possibly be summoned at any point in time to come over and induce Elizabeth into an almost zen-like trance with our presence).

Her parents, Lindsey and Jacques, are incredibly awesome people who are SO fun and have an amazing sense of humor (Elizabeth’s bedside books included the complete and unabridged Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos). Her dad even writes amazing comic books! So little Elizabeth couldn’t be growing up in a cooler family (or with a more loving system of family members as well… her grandparents, aunt, and uncle were all delighted with her, even when she covered them in stickers). Elizabeth is very much loved and cherished, and I am so excited for her future self to see the photos of how adored she was by everyone (and how much fun she had as a kid). We’re honored to have had this family has clients!

Vivi // A Toddler Session

Vivi! What an amazing, adorable, ginger-headed toddler that there ever was. Her parents contacted us to have a session with Vivi as she recently turned two. The parents explicitly wanted absolutely not part in the photos themselves, and they warned me that it’s pretty much Vivi’s world, we’re just living in it. We were told that she would run, pick up sticks, play with rocks, and pose for no one… which, really, is our ideal client. So we met them in a park and spent a chunk of the evening literally running around after Vivi and attempting (mostly successfully!) to get the camera to focus on a constantly moving object. She did indeed pick up sticks. She did indeed play with rocks. She found a leaf, but this didn’t interest her for too long. She saw the camera, and then proceeded to say, “CHEEEEEEESE!” as she ran in the opposite direction of me. She loved Mr. Geoff, but most small children do (probably because Mr. Geoff’s not entirely sure how to approach small children and they can sense it, much like our cats flock exclusively toward people who are allergic to them).

Vivi also had a keen interest in all potentially dangerous areas of the park such as stairs, old farm equipment, and a stranger’s dog. Halfway through the session it started to pour and Vivi ran out from the overhang, stood in the rain, and looked entirely and completely confused. Then she’d laugh up at the sky. Then she’d look confused again. She wasn’t sure whether or not she liked it or wanted to be in it, but she had a hard time staying away from it, so we decided to go with the flow and follow her around in the rain for a while, still picking up sticks. She is, clearly, hilarious and amazing and kept us laughing the entire time. I think this age group has it best. Sticks, rocks, laughter, adventure, and having people chase after you all the time to make sure you’re okay and to give you snacks.