Jo+Brad+Laurel+Sam

And we’re back!

Hello, dear friends! After a long two-year Covid retirement, I pulled a Stephen King and unretired. I’m so glad to be back in action. And delightfully, the first family I photographed were these fine folks who are near and dear to my heart. I’ve been photographing Laurel and Sam since they were 8 and 6 years old, and now they’re driving to school and have grown into wonderful human beings who are both way taller than me. Laurel loves reading, Stranger Things, and can sing very excellently into a spatula. Sam can solve a Rubik’s cube in less time than it takes me to lace up my Vans and is an excellent cellist who can play all my favorite movie soundtracks by ear. And then there’s Jo who loves Simon, and Simon who loves Jo. Simon (the doggo) turned 4 on the day of the shoot, and celebrated his birthday by eating a string cheese. He begrudgingly wore a party hat for 10 seconds but he side-eyed us the whole time.

And because I couldn’t come out of retirement alone, this is the very first year that Jo and I have successfully convinced Brad to juggle for the camera. We’ve tried before but Brad was resistant to our pleading. Supposedly his juggling days were long over and he was rusty (this was not the case at all). Thankfully, I think we caught him off guard this year and he suddenly found himself outside holding 3 rubber chickens. I was delighted. Jo was delighted. Brad is excellent at juggling. I hope this inspires him to restart his juggling days. And what better way for me to come out of retirement than to photograph someone successfully juggling rubber chickens after begging them to let me photograph them juggling rubber chickens for all these years! I love these guys.

Ohh, it was so wonderful to see these folks again! They’re the first in a long string of client reunions I’ve recently had and it makes me so happy. Sarah and Tim were married back in 2015 in Duke Forest and, after living in DC for a few years, they recently returned to Raleigh. And now they have the distinct pleasure of being the parents to the ADORABLE toddler Theo! So it was my mission to document them together as a family hanging around the newly renovated Moore Square. The new Moore Square is SO nice, especially when you have a Theo who loves to run, run, and then run some more (shortly before losing his shoes, which he did a lot). We spent most of the time catching him, cuddling with him until he would no longer tolerate it, then chasing after him again. When he’s not running, he loves busses, playing peek-a-boo near the Marbles balls, books, and animals of all kinds (there was a lot of high-pitched squealing when I presented him with a bat sticker and he seemed like he was working on subtly coercing his parents into adopting either a cat or a dog by saying the words a lot). He is an extremely happy-go-lucky toddler. Sarah and Tim hit the jackpot with Theo, and likewise Theo with Sarah and Tim. So glad I could see these great people again!