These folks (and their cats) are near and dear to my heart! I met them back when they were a husband and wife photography team, photographed them after they had changed careers and before they had Julian, then photographed them most recently in early 2020 when Julian was just learning how to walk. Now Sara has grown her astrology business into a super successful career and has published books and planners, Sam works for a major company, and Julian is not only walking but flying between rooms. It’s been so fun to see the changes in all of them throughout the years. Their adorable cats, though, have held steady and are exactly the same and still very adorable. Biscuit and Miss Poofy (see if you can determine who is who) made appearances in exchange for treats and head scratches and were very good models. Julian is a little wild ball of 4 year-old energy that is friendly and sweet and LOVES cats. He also loves making tea in the backyard out of sand and water from the swimming pool, gardening, and reading. He’s a super successful reader who just picked up on reading himself – one day his parents just found that Julian was able to read – and I imagine that one day they’ll wake up to find that Julian has also picked up on calculus by himself, or maybe astrophysics. He’s just that sort of kid. He gave me lots of hugs when I left and asked if he could get in my car so I could take him to Marbles.
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.
Cliftonnnn! I photographed this kiddo last year and his parents warned me that he was slow to warm up, but we were BFFs immediately. Something about people that like cats meeting other people that like cats and agreeing to always be friends. Clifton is my buddy. During this session he really enjoyed excitedly showing me things like his smoothie, the cup that he was drinking his smoothie out of, the color of his smoothie, the straw inside the smoothie, etc. He also enjoyed showing me his cat Jackson, who we once again gently pried from his stranger-danger hiding place to excitedly admire before he quickly ran away from us (we’re so sorry JJ, we love you). Clifton also liked having conversations such as:
Clifton: We went on vacation!
Me: Where did you go?
Clifton: We went on vacation!
Me: Yes, but to where? Was there a beach? Were there mountains?
Clifton: We went on vacation!
He’s my favorite. It was so nice to see this family again and to to see how much taller Clifton got and how much higher he can jump and that he likes kayaking now. He’s one of the most joyous little kids I’ve met and excited about everything. But mostly cats. And I respect that so much.
I got the chance to photograph this wonderful family several years ago when Braelyn was only 1, and now she’s pushing her mom on a swing, riding a big girl bike, and driving go karts around her living room (!!). She loves stickers and bubbles and choosing her shoes. She also is a great older sister to little brother Braedyn, and even let him choose multiple stickers out of her much valued sticker book. Braedyn himself is one of the sweetest little toddlers I’ve ever met. Super easy-going and very kind, he gave me several stickers from said sticker book, as well as offered me a bite of every single snack he ate. He is such a loving little kid and liked to grab my hand and run across the house to show me things. Together they had a great time putting together Legos and wrestling with Dad, and then riding go karts and bikes with Mom. And let me just say that the go karts are really something fantastic. The kids can steer and drive them themselves, or they can be remote controlled (!) by the parents so that your kids aren’t constantly running into your furniture or other people. They also light up and play carnival music and I definitely want one for myself and/or my cats. We had the first nice day of the summer for this shoot and it was worth all the rainy reschedules we had to photograph this great crew once again!