What an utterly delightful small child Alex is! I already knew that Katherine and Jon were delightful so it didn’t surprise me. Alex, much like his father, loves cars and transportation devices of any type. His vehicle of choice is a sweet blue and orange number by Little Tikes and he’ll beat you in a street race any day of the week. He’s fast. He’s mean. He’ll casually rest his elbow on his permanently rolled down window and look like one cool dude, and you better get out of the way. When he’s not racing people in the streets, he’s offering Cheerios to his parents and then swiftly rescinding the offer and putting them back in his own mouth. When he’s not doing that, you can also find him reading, building towers of blocks and then knocking them over, or hanging out at the local playground where he’ll also race you on the slides, all while being one cool dude still. I am excited for the breadth of knowledge about Rush he’ll have when he’s older. He’s very charming. His parents are very charming. I’m very happy to reunite with them and meet their little street racer.
I was very excited to meet Clifton because I already love Hannah and David (we photographed their wedding back in 2016!). And I knew that Hannah loves cats, and she told me that Clifton also loves cats. I wore one of my many shirts with cats on it to their session to try and win him over, and I think it worked. He also seemed to trust me more when he learned that our cats have similar names (theirs is Jackson, ours is Jackie – both cats have the nickname of the other cat, as well as JackJack, Jackie Boy, JJ, etc). Let me tell you…Clifton really, really, really loves cats. He has a lot of cat stuffed animals. All of the cats are named “Kitty.” Out of these many cats, he does have a favorite Kitty who is gray, and who he wanted me to hold (Clifton is enormously sweet). He also was very keen on my idea to pose him on a stool surrounded by his cat collection, which I was incredibly excited about, and it’s a picture which I hope some day makes an appearance at his wedding. I love this family and their love of cats. We had a great time mowing the lawn, swinging on swings, collecting acorns and tomatoes, and playing with cars. But most importantly – talking about cats.
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.