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.

Raleigh Family Photographer: Gabby+Mike+Evan+Olive+Max

So I don’t advertise that I do family portraits because I concentrate mainly on weddings and those are 99% of my time. I’ve typically narrowed it down to only photographing friends’ families, or friends of friends, or families of friends, etc.  But I received this e-mail in my inbox a few months ago, and the wording was so funny that I agreed to take this woman and her so-called “crazy bunch” on. Upon further stalking of my blog, Gabby (the mom), discovered that my friend Alaskan Kate (who was my bridesmaid and featured a few times in my blog as a photography subject) is her son’s preschool teacher. We both thought that was strange and a small world, but it got even weirder when I said, “Oh yeah! I just volunteered for Kate’s bookfair to raise money for their preschool tonight! I made the buttons!” And it turned out that they were there and we had already met each other and Evan (their son) made a button and the button maker malfunctioned and her husband Mike gave me a rating of C- button making!!! SMALL WORLD.

Anyway – Gabby’s been keeping me entertained for weeks now sending me funny Twitter messages and I’ve been busy stalking their family pictures on Facebook. Now their family pictures are here! Gabby is mom, Mike is dad, Evan is the handsome 3 year-old, Olive is the adorable 15 month-old, and Max is the senior dog. All of them are equally adorable. You’ll see. It’s kind of hard to choose. Special thanks goes out to Chacha and her son – the Fekete family’s trusty neighbors who wrangled children, dogs, shoes, jelly beans, socks, bags, and were able to make everyone smile.

 

 

Raleigh Family Photographer: Vanessa+John+Luke+Scott

Meet the Zitzmann family! This ship is captained by Vanessa and John (mom and dad) and their crew is Luke and Scott. Luke and Scott look remarkably similar, but Luke is two years older at 6 years. Vanessa is the sister of my friend Daniel and I had the pleasure of first meeting these guys at Daniel’s wedding in March. Fast family facts: John made a lot of faces in Daniel’s formal wedding pictures which Vanessa expressly forbid him to do in these portraits, and he tried his hardest to hold back. ;) Vanessa wanted the pictures done at Theatre in the Park where she spends a lot of time currently rehearsing for A Christmas Carol. And Luke and Scott like to run, jump, run, jump, run, run, run, jump, run, and hang out with their stuffed Yoshi from Super Mario. My kind of crew. Needless to say, we had a ton of fun running around! Afterward, Vanessa had a ton of fun getting leaves all over the dressing room floor, and I had a ton of fun getting the leaves out of my boots, socks, hair, etc. ;) Enjoy this super fun and adorable family!

…and afterward they collapsed into a pile of exhaustion. ;)

Raleigh Portrait Photographer: Baby Elic

I don’t really do baby sessions. This is my third one. In fact, babies scare me. They make me really nervous. I’m always afraid to pose or move them for fear that they’ll break into a bajillion pieces… and I have no idea what to do when they cry. Baby photography should really be left up to the experts (newborn photography is really a work of art and the people who do it well are incredibly talented). However, Jen and Nick are our dear friends… and baby Elic is basically our adopted nephew whether his parents like it or not. I’ve told them from the beginning that I’ll be the cool aunt who lets Elic stay up way too late when he stays at our house, feeding him nothing but Skittles and letting him watch the Exorcist. I think Jen and Nick have more or less accepted that at this point.

That all being the case, I gave Jen and Nick a little newborn session for baby Elic shortly after he arrived into the world. He’s a total stud, as you’ll see, and rocks the corduroys as well as Eddie Vedder, despite Nick repeatedly telling me that Elic will never be permitted to play in a band (we’ll see what Uncle Geoff has to say about that). He also has the pensive, serious face of an early 90’s grunge artist… only surrounded by stuffed giraffes instead of Courtney Love. It’s probably for the best.