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.

May 13, 2011

Raleigh Portrait Photographer: The Armstrong Family

Ohhh, today is such a happy blog post! Not that any of them are unhappy, but this one is just plain cute. :)

Meet the men of the hour: fraternal twins Will (on left) and Ryan (on right). How adorable are they!? Just the sweetest things! They will be turning one year old in early June, so these are their first year portraits. :) We took a bunch with super cool mom and dad, too! Mom is the incredibly talented force behind Mae Armstrong Designs; she does custom invitations, stationary, and all sorts of really incredibly crafty projects. I am pretty much addicted to her Facebook fan page feed already as I envy anyone who can sew and has the ability to turn an old shirt into an awesome skirt. Really! And, if anyone is thinking Dad looks familiar, he’s the evening Sports Anchor on ABC11! How do I get such cool clients?!

Will and Ryan aren’t crafting or reading news prompters yet, but rest assured they are destined for greatness… but we’ll have to wait until they can walk first. For now, they’ll just sit around the NC State Arboretum looking really really cute:

Will: “Why am I sitting in this ivy?”

Ryan: “Who, me?”

This picture absolutely cracks me up. So – for those of you to do child portraits – you know that you’ll spend most of the session making goofy faces and sounds and pretty much standing on your head. Will and Ryan could see through my antics and the below picture shows them questioning the particular circus show I was performing at the time.

Ryan modeling his Blue Steel face.

True story: The bear below is none other than Snuggles. Yes, like from the dryer sheet commercials. When I was 5 years old my family took me to some Family Day type thing at the park, but you could enter your name into a contest to win prizes. However, the prizes were totally random (maybe they weren’t… I need my mom to help fill in some of these details), but long story short – I won… a hammer. Yes, the city officials gave a 5 year old a hammer as a door prize. Needless to say, I cried. A lot. Because what I had really wanted was Snuggles… and because what was I going to do with a hammer. So the officials gave in and traded the hammer out for Snuggles, and happily home I went. 20 years later, Snuggles now lives with us in North Carolina and has been re-purposed as a hand puppet for small children I photograph. He’s happy with his new job, and the kids love him. Way to go, Snuggles!

Vogue it, boys!

Aren’t these little gentlemen the cutest? You boys will look back on this twenty-some years later and your girlfriends will LOVE these! :D

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April 12, 2011

Raleigh Portrait Photographer: Gregory(baby)+Kuma(dog)+Bella(dog)

Prepare for two really cute two sessions in one! :) A wonderful woman named Melanie called me a couple weeks ago to set up a portrait session for her 11-month old son, Gregory, and her two dogs, Kuma and Bella. Therefore, this is half toddler-portrait-session and half dog-portrait-session… the best of both ridiculously cute and cuddly worlds! :)

We’ll start with Gregory first! Gregory, who is such a photogenic toddler and lover of the camera despite his cold at the time, is the happiest toddler in the world. He didn’t cry or get upset once, even when he was tired! He laughed and smiled the entire time. Even when he finally did get tired, he just sort of rubbed his eyes and looked like, “Uuuggghh… so tired… but I must… keep… posing…”. He’s clearly a baby modeling natural! I loved this little fella!

This is Gregory’s “Blue Steel” face… all CSP clients have one, even the babies.

And enter Bella! Bella is a large (very large) black and furry dog of unknown origin. She is a total sweetheart (her patience exhibited below) and Gregory just loves her.

Bella and Gregory get along. Kuma, ehhh, not so much. :) Kuma gets along with Bella, but not really with kids. She just does her own thing being A REALLY CUTE (but tiny) dog that looks like you took a Husky and shrunk them down with a shrink-ray and made a pocket sized version (technically called the Shiba Inu breed). Look at that face!

Enter Gregory+Kuma+Bella’s incredibly kind and beautiful parents, Melanie and Mark! Melanie is a software architect and Mark is a lawyer, and combined their children will be very smart and professional! Look at Gregory’s face below… he knows how to work it for the camera. :)

Look at this little dog! Ohhh, Kuma, I just want to give you lots of hugs but you kinda just do your own thing by yourself and I respect that.

So Bella originally was supposed to be 40 pounds full grown, but she obviously became much much bigger. No one is sure of her breed… all we know is that she’s very soft, furry, and giant. But she is so cute! I love her ears. She can look pretty wolf-ish sometimes and is just adorable!

I had a great time on this shoot and it was a pleasure getting to know and work with this beautiful family! :)

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April 8, 2011

Raleigh Portrait Photographer: The Stanford Family

Remember the epicness that was the wedding of Valerie and Kenneth?! Well thankfully I was graced with their amazing presence again last week when I was asked to do their family portraits. :) I love this job the most when I get to see my clients again and follow their families along! And trust me, this family (parents AND kids) is easy to photograph. They were awesome at posing at their wedding, and they’re still awesome at posing now, in their own house. Valerie and Kenneth have a very expressive and funky style and both could easily take first place in America’s Next Top Model. They’ve apparently passed these important skills along to their kids, Xavian and Ariyana, who also had great style and that Blue Steel look.

Val and Kenneth wanted their pictures to be casual and take place in their home. Then they wanted them funky and taking place in near Franklin Street in Chapel Hill… complete with sunglasses and a lot of attitude. Both came out equally awesome! Love love love this family! Cocoa, the dog, somehow knew we were taking family portraits and hopped in almost all of them, haha. And pictured below is Mary, Kenneth’s mother, who had some pictures taken with her grandkids. :)

Love these kids! They are so adorable and get along so well. Xavian is 10 and Ariyana is 7.

Get your modeling on, Cocoa.

The picture below pretty much exemplifies the Stanford family. It also shows off Valerie and Kenneth’s modeling skills.

Standford family, when you put out a CD someday, the picture below and to the right needs to be the cover. Needs to. You’d make millions. All I require is credit on the inside jacket, okay?

LOOK AT THIS KID!!! He is amazing.

Ariyana came up with the peace sign pose and, when she releases a CD (which she surely will), this will be her cover.

Seriously, this is the coolest, most suave and well-dressed family of 4 on the planet. And despite their serious model faces, they are genuinely some of the most hilarious people I’ve ever met. Their sense of humor is great.

So in conclusion, remember these faces… because they’re bound to be on radio, television, or some other form of mass media eventually. It’s only a matter of time.

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