Sam+Casey+Desmond+Spencer

What better way to start of my 2023 shooting season than a 30 second walking commute to my neighbor’s house?! Best commute ever. Was very tempted to send them a text shortly before telling them that I would be late because traffic was bad. Meet Sam, Casey, Desmond, and Spencer! They are most excellent neighbors with good taste in music (if you ever see me wearing my rainbow Nirvana shirt it is because I saw Sam walking around the street with one), good taste in holidays (Desmond is a big fan of Halloween and loves discussing The Nightmare Before Christmas), and good taste in felines (they have a very adorable orange and black cat named Lily who is extremely sweet). I was very excited to go photograph them hanging around on a Sunday morning, especially because I knew it would involve Desi’s amazing Power Wheels bulldozer. The kids on our street all have Power Wheels, which makes me very jealous of them even as a late-30s adult woman who clearly never recovered from never having a Power Wheel herself. But at least I can photograph them now, and so I’ll take every opportunity. I also photographed Spencer looking absolutely precious in her little winter outdoor clothes and eating her first s’more in the backyard. It was a ton of fun to photograph our wonderful neighbors Sam and Casey and their amazing kids, plus bring back leftover S’mores for Geoff. :)

Jessica+Ron+Liam+Lila+Lucy+Rudy // At home.

We welcome this awesome family to North Carolina from upstate New York with open arms! They are a pretty rad addition to the area and we’re happy to help them come in from the snow. ;) We met them on a sunny weekend morning at their house to photograph them going about their usual business. They moved into the house with the idea of a complete renovation, and it’s become kind of a fun project for them (I’m not sure if they’d use the word “fun” as they’re doing the work themselves, but I kind of love house projects, so I say it looks like fun. Note: This is not an offer of free labor, Jessica and Ron). They’re doing the work as they go and wanted to document this part of their lives in transition, as well as their new move from the north. They’ve already built a pretty fabulous chicken coop in their yard for fresh eggs, and are making full use of the best tire swing ever in their beautifully wooded front yard.

This session gave us the opportunity to meet our first Bullmastiff clients, Lucy and Rudy, who are quite large but not at all fearsome. Lucy is the larger of the two, and she is Rudy’s aunt. Rudy, the “smaller” Bullmastiff, is 4 months old. Go ahead and look at him. He’s four. months. old. He’s already 75% of my bodyweight. Liam can ride the larger dog like a small horse. They’ve commandeered the two giant bean bag chairs in the family room that were meant for the kids, but they look really adorable sleeping in them so nobody cares. The kids are pretty great themselves and spend their time playing video games, wrestling the dogs, painting, and drawing. Lila, slightly unhappy with the candid direction of the shoot, took over the session at the end and started directing everyone into a variety of very dramatic poses in front of the fireplace. Look for her directorial movie debut in about fifteen years.