Category: Couples

It is with great love and enthusiasm that we induct Claudia, Ron, and Layla into the CSP 3rd Timers Club! We’ve had three sessions with these two amazing dog parents and their pups. Layla, the golden Golden Retriever, has been with us from the beginning with her brother Canela. When Canela passed away, Layla and her parents adopted Reagan, the white Golden Retriever, who is now being inducted into the CSP 2nd Timers Club. ;) The dogs are so excited when they greet us that I’d like to think they remember us, which I think also might be true because Layla is very good at posing for us at this point. She sits where she’s supposed to, looks at the camera, kind of dog-smiles, and then either looks like she’s falling asleep standing, or it’s her version of the Tyra Banks “smize,” I can’t really tell. Reagan is still learning about cameras and modeling, but he can tell you all about his purple dragon toy, and repeatedly give you his paw when his parents go out of reach for reassurance (either for himself or for me, I also can’t tell).

Claudia and Ron, the humans in this story, are two of the most wonderful and gracious people we’ve had the pleasure of working with. And it is truly an honor to photograph them for the third time. That means so much to us and is such a huge compliment that I can’t even adequately describe it. It’s just nice to see the same people over and over again and to have our work trusted and appreciated. We really love these guys, and we love their dogs, and we love how kind and gentle they are to their dogs (and to us!). Also, we love Claudia’s accent, so that doesn’t hurt either. Happy 10th wedding anniversary, Claudia+Ron! And here’s to many, many more. :)

Sooo many pups lately! We’ve had a ton of them accompanying us to shoots, but we can’t complain because who doesn’t love fuzzy adorableness? I am a sucker for fluffy dogs and especially Huskies, so when Abby and Rick told us that they were planning on bringing their eight week old Husky pup named Athena, I went to work on devising a plan where we could pretend like we’re posing and photographing the couple, but really just photograph Athena the entire time. Then when Abby and Rick would see the pictures later, they couldn’t even be mad that there weren’t any pictures of them because Athena is so cute.

But it turns out that Abby and Rick were also really cute, and really nice, and the light was SO GOOD on this morning session in Durham that we decided to suck it up and not just photograph Athena, but also photograph her owners as well as her adorrrrrable and very very sweet older brother, Atlas, a Black Lab/Golden Retriever mix. Atlas is ridiculously calm and well behaved for his age (ten months), and also fiercely loyal to his mother. He cried whenever she’d walk around the corner despite many pets and reassurances from us that we weren’t kidnapping her. The pups kept Abby company while Rick was away on deployment, and now they are all very happy to have Rick back home to spend time together hiking and being really, really cute.

I feel like it’s been a while since we posted just a good ole engagement session up in here! A couple of our sessions have been rained out or postponed for various things, and we’ve been out of town a lot, so now’s a good chance to jump back into the portraits. We shot these ones of Callie and Jeff, two pretty rad people getting married in the spring, outside of the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh and down around Historic Oakwood. Those two adorable furry things with them are named Harper (black lab – 9) and Abbi (hound/beagle/dog? – almost a year). They were really well behaved and mostly cooperative and 100% cute (the dogs, not Callie and Jeff, although they were also well behaved, cooperative, and cute). Here we are lurking around the neighborhood while staying on the sidewalks so we can’t legally be held responsible for said lurking. Enjoy.