Durham Family Photographer

Carolyn Scott is a Durham family photographer. She specializes in candid and documentary at-home family photography in the Triangle area (Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Cary, etc). Carolyn’s work has been published in several popular books and magazines, including Apartment Therapy, BuzzFeed, and Fangoria. Locally, she’s been voted Best Photographer in Durham Magazine’s Best Of Durham and INDY Week’s Best of the Triangle. She lives in South Durham with her husband Geoff and three cats.

This was my first time working with Katie, Lee, their newborn baby, and their cat Oliver. I love meeting new people and attempting to win over their cats. I was warned several times that it would probably not be possible with Oliver, but I’m pleased to report that he tolerated my presence and politely posed for photos. ;) What a handsome guy! Tied in first place of handsomeness with his younger human brother, of course. Their baby was so wonderful to work with! He slept, he chilled, he swaddled, he slept some more. What a gem. We took some pictures around their home in their first few weeks of parenthood and discussed the travel adventures that they’ll do with their son when he gets older. Katie and Lee are avid travelers, and their baby’s nursery reflects one of their favorite trips to Africa where they saw some baby elephants (Katie’s favorite). It was a quiet, lovely morning to photographing this beautiful new family!

I’ve been photographing my friends here over in Holly Springs for so many years – from when Sara and Sam were just a couple, to when their son was super little, to now when he’s in his school age years and obsessed with towers. The towers are new to this year. He loves towers of all types, but mostly towers that include sirens. One of his favorite activities is pretending he’s a tower with a siren, which involves standing completely still, arms above his head, emanating a high-pitched noise… all while making his parents find the base of the tower somewhere in the room, which is always invisible. The siren impressions are quite accurate and impeccable, and he can tell you about all sorts of famous towers with sirens all over the world. When he’s not talking about sirens, he enjoys talking about cats, reading, and playing video games.

Miss Poofy the Cat loves him and is totally cool with the siren sounds and the tower building. It was an honor to photograph her beautiful poofy self again, along with some photos of Biscuit, the super cute tabby with the orange who poses with very cartoon-wide eyes when offered treats. Bandit, their third kitty, did not make an appearance for this photoshoot but she sends her kind feline regards. Also a joy to photograph some of Sara and Sam this year making cookies for their annual Cookie Week at their house, where they bake a ton of different types of cookies (a delicious and wonderful tradition!).

I was so happy to reunite with Katy and Jereme and their two kids, who have the #1 eyelashes in the tri-state area – nay – the world. And maybe they don’t appreciate their insanely beautiful eyelashes yet but someday they will be like wow, what a gift. In the meantime, they’re breaking boards apart in taekwondo class, swinging in the backyard, showing me throw pillows in the shape of their mom’s face, jumping on couches and in cribs, playing hide and seek in the yard, and doing kid stuff where they aren’t worried about how wonderful their eyelashes are. There’s also some pretty intense/incredible smiling from Little Brother. And I got to hang out with Katy and Jereme, who are rad people with good taste in sports (baseball) and movies (Donnie Darko) and dogs (Sammy the elderly and precious Schnauzer). It’s always fun to hang out with them because they have a great sense of humor and don’t get offended when their kid only wants me to push him on the swing and not them and then proceeds to make frowny faces in all the photos where they’re pushing him on the swing because I was busy trying to photograph the family together (what can I say? I am a #1 swing pusher).