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.

Aww, you guys. Last time I photographed Lindsay and Rishi was in 2019 when they were pregnant with their first daughter. Now they have two insanely cute daughters and are back in the area after several moves in the last decade, one of which was abroad. Lindsay and I kept in touch during those times because I became quite internet-attached to Bogart, her cat, who I had never met in real life but felt like I knew in my soul. And while I unfortunately never got the opportunity to meet Bogart, I now have finally met Roxie, their dachshund, who was just as impressive in person as she is online. In fact, even more so, because this is the very first dog in my entire 38 years of life who I’ve ever seen truly beg. Like, sit on her hind legs, stand up, put her paws together and move her hands back and forth beg. Like a little circus dog. The best part? Lindsay and Rishi never taught her how to do that – she just came that way. And now, all these years later (Roxie is a dignified senior), she still does it. And it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen. It was so much fun to photograph this crew in their home and looking for treasures on a walk (their daughters collect these treasures in a treasure box in the garage, which is a beautiful group of perfectly preserved deceased butterflies, cicadas, feathers, leaves, pinecones, grasshoppers, etc). And another Familiar Dolls cat doll may have made an appearance towards the end…#shamelessselfpromotion.

It is a JOY to be reunited with the one, the only – Bread Boy and his family! If you don’t remember Bread Boy, he’s been on the front page of my website for some time – joyfully holding up an enormous stack of bread. I had never seen a toddler so excited. I feel like Bread Boy’s values live in all of us: a sincere love of carbs that exists outside the confines of time and space. I was very excited to see Bread Boy again after all this time and to photograph a recreation portrait of him and his bread stack, and let me tell you, he was just as delightful as he was a few years ago, and just as excited about bread. And the best part? He has three younger brothers who he’s training to also love bread. Okay, so the baby can’t eat bread yet, but the other two can, and I’d say that Bread Boy has some competition. What a delightful little crew of kids. They’re all so friendly, so polite, so good at rescuing bugs from the dangers of trampolines, and so quick to share the vegetables they’ve grown in their garden. It was so wonderful to photograph these boys in their home, surrounded by bread, of course.

This child! It’s my third wonderful time photographing Sara and Jackson but my first time photographing their son who is a well known child-model-turned-boy-band-member. Okay, so he’s not a well known child-model-turned-boy-band-member. But he’s definitely striving to be. White tux (check). Dramatic swoop of blonde hair across the forehead (check). Phoenix Sun basketball shoes (check). Mardi Gras beads that he put on himself (check). Zoolander facial expressions (check). Pointing directly into the camera without prompting (check). Someone give this boy a contract, he is clearly ready to sign autographs to his throngs of fans and I’ll be the first in line. All of his poses below are completely his own trademark runway creations. There was no posing involved from any adult – he just did his own thing and we all gasped and applauded. What a dude. When not actively modeling (which is not very often), he loves cars and hugging his stuffed animals and headbanging to the Presidents of the United States of America’s lead singer’s side project Caspar Babypants.