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.

Jo+Brad+Laurel+Sam

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.

I adored photographing this family last year when they were just a couple with a fab 2-year-old who ate two popsicles at the same time while wearing awesome dinosaur shoes. Now they’re a family of four! Skye and Rui just welcomed their newborn daughter Bennett into the world a mere handful of days before Tye was set to turn 3. I was on hand with them this particular weekend to help document all the family who flew in to celebrate Tye’s birthday, as well as to snap a few shots of Bennett, and Skye’s sister Ashley’s pregnancy. It was a ton of fun meeting all their family members! They’re such a supportive group of people. Skye and Rui will be moving out-of-state shortly to be closer to them all, which breaks my heart, but I’m so glad that I got the chance to meet and work with them during this time in their lives. Tye is a smart, hilarious little kid (who sang birthday songs in multiple languages while I was there!) who wants everyone to know that he’s 3. He also loves car washes so much that he burst into tears after receiving a mini one as a gift. He had a joyous birthday surrounded by those who love him, and who could ask for more? Thank you to Skye and Rui for having me in your lives these past two years, and I wish you nothing but love and success in your new home!

I last photographed Sara and Sam back in May of 2015! So much has changed for them since then: different jobs, a different house, and now they have a darling son named Julian. The things that have not changed are Sara’s love for cats, Sam’s love for board games, and that both of them are still two of the nicest people in the world. Julian is busy keeping them on their toes: adorably yet intentionally dropping sweet potato on their beautiful kitchen rug juuuust off his plastic mat where it would be okay if food landed, making them drive him around in his sweet orange convertible race car wagon thing that inexplicably yet awesomely makes engine revving noises when you push the horn, and enjoying listening to his parents read him books about role-playing games. He’s a fast kid – on the verge of deciding whether he wants to walk or crawl everywhere but is fast at both, and clearly a cat lover at a very young age. Cats Biscuit and Miss Poofy (technically titled Lady Esmeralda von Poofington) made appearances: Miss Poofy living up to her dramatic name by suddenly jumping up and walking on the piano and then lounging on the piano bench. And we took some updated headshots of Sara while we were at it – she has a gorgeous new office where she works on astrology. It was so nice to see these guys again and to photograph their clearly very adorable and spunky young son! Also their cats… obviously.