Megan+Carly+Jane+Ronan

I’ve known Megan and Carly for many years now and it was wonderful to reunite with them to celebrate the birth of their new baby Ronan and the wild, amazing ways of 2 year old Jane. Megan and Carly are fantastic people and it is not a surprise that their children would be the same! Jane is… incredible. Like, really incredible. She has amazing fashion choices (best shark shoes ever) and an extremely enthusiastic attitude. I feel the need to tell you that I did not pose Jane at all for any pictures. The facial expressions and poses are Jane’s and Jane’s alone. And there are a lot of them… and they’re all amazing. She was very excited for her photoshoot, greeting me at the door and yelling, “CAROLYN’S HERE!” to her parents and then proceeding to welcome me in and giving me a grand tour of her toys and house. She is an amazing force of a little person and I love her and all of her sheer joy. Ronan is an adorable baby so he enjoys eating and sleeping and looking at Jane while Jane enthusiastically hugs him. He is very cute and extremely well-behaved. I love this whole family and their amazing selves. Thank you to Megan and Carly for having me run around your house and be a part of documenting you all together!

Laurie+Dwight+June+Davis

I photographed Laurie and Dwight’s wedding back in 2014 (!) and now it’s an absolute delight to photograph them as a family of four with their two kids. Davis is a smiley little guy who enjoys Cheez-its, swings, and asking a lot of questions via adorable little baby noises. June is me, except she’s 4. She likes cats so much that sometimes she prefers to be called by the name of one of their cats, and she’ll let you know which name she’s going by today (human or cat). She had a cat dress on. Almost all of the art on the walls that she’s made is of cats. She has many cat toys, some of which were so adorable that I’ll probably buy them myself. She looked at pictures of my cats and then repeated their names and qualities with total delight to her dad. She knows exactly where the Temptations are kept in the kitchen. She’s my kind of girl.

Laurie and Dwight are great people and Laurie’s also an amazing dentist in Raleigh! She became my dentist during the pandemic and I was delighted to find that she has televisions mounted on the ceiling of her office, which is, in my opinion, the most ingenious thing to ever happen in the field of dentistry. I’m so happy for her to have a thriving business and for their family to have two wonderful kids. It was so much fun to photograph them all together at home.

Kathy+Andrew+Alden+Eben

Such a joy reuniting with some of my all-time favorite people! Geoff and I photographed Kathy and Andrew’s wedding back in the day, and then I’ve also had the joy of photographing them with Alden a couple of times. Now it’s been a few years and they have a new 2 year-old addition named Eben, who is just as delightful as Alden. Their children are adorable and sweet kids who enjoy making forts in the living room, having tea, and playing with lots of trains. The trains, for some reason, are carrying large tanks full of what appears to be full-grown great white sharks. I’m not sure if the trains are transporting these sharks to an aquarium or a rehabilitation center or if it’s a Snowpiercer situation, but regardless, I just want to let you know the type of cargo the trains in this household are transporting because it seems important.

And there, watching the trains transport the sharks and observing the tea parties and the cookie making, is Brewer the Tabby Cat. Brewer is an extremely friendly cat who has always been a part of our shoots. I think he thinks that the camera is there for him, and he acts accordingly. Their calico Addie, however, wants nothing to do with me but I love her from afar.

It was quite a gloomy and rainy morning when we shot this, but the kids made the absolute most of their day inside by doing a ton of fun things with Mom and Dad, which included making cookies, which is maybe the absolute best activity you can do when it’s raining. I had so much fun catching up with all of them and continuing to be a little part of their family story!