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.

A lot of you know that my background is actually in elementary education, so I was super excited to turn my wedding photography business into a family portrait business earlier this year. And through focusing on family photography, I’m having such a great time working with kids again! I love meeting them as they’re all totally different, but universally hilarious.

Abby and Sammy were no different, but they have the additive qualities of being such strong little kids! Abby has Down syndrome and was diagnosed with leukemia last year. She’s been going through treatment and recently got home from the hospital. Abby is so strong and brave, but above all, so happy! Her mom warned me that she might be shy around the camera, but she was not! She laughed and giggled and loved to tell me hi, and then, like a 4-going-on-14-year-old, retreated to her laptop and wanted us all to leave her alone. :D Her younger brother Sammy is supportive and loves his big sister! He also loves blowing bubbles and playing with puzzles and cars. He has a phenomenal head of hair, so part of the reason for this portrait shoot was to document his lovely hairdo before his first haircut. Both kiddos also celebrated birthdays recently, so a portrait session was a must, and I’m happy to have gotten the chance to work with these two great kids.

Cat and Mitchell are two very good friends of ours. They’ve been photographed 6 times by us (insert lots of happy, nostalgic tears here) and we love love love them. Our relationship started out by us photographing them in unusually frigid weather for their engagement session in Greensboro, progressed to me jumping in a bouncy castle with Cat during a break in shooting their wedding, and now it’s devolved into me complaining about kidney stones to them at a Weezer concert. So they’re quite special to us, and now so are their children. Their son Cameron is seriously *the* sweetest and most adorable kid. Look at him. Look at him! He is constantly a smiling, happy, joyful little dude who is so sweet I could cry. He let me win at Candy Land. What 3 year old does that? He’s the best. (Note: did not let his parents win at Candy Land, definitely beat them by a landslide).

Sarah, his newfound little sister, is adorable and excels at looking cute, wearing baby Hawaiian print shirts, and staying awake until the exact moment I start eating lunch. Together, they are an unstoppable brother/sister duo I adore. We got to meet her and hang out with Cat and Mitchell for a day at Mitchell’s family’s new house in Kure Beach. This day mostly involved us discussing and worrying about rip tides, sharks, flesh-eating bacteria, and brain-eating amoebas before we finally were all brave enough to swim. Happy to say that none of things we worried about came true. However, I did break into hives for no reason and had to go in (it’s always the things you don’t see coming, isn’t it?). But – all’s well that ends well. We had a beautiful day at the coast with this family of four and we love them. Also, new family rule: no pictures ever again of any of you unless you’re all wearing matching Hawaiian outfits.

This was such a fun family session to do – I love doing extended family shoots with multiple generations because everyone’s excited to be there with each other, especially when they’re traveling from out of state (or in from India!). This shoot involved Gita and Neil, their adorable children Deven and Maya, as well as Neil’s extended family (shout out to Shilpu for finding my website and recommending me!). All of the family members were in town to meet newborn baby Maya, who is so sweet and agreeable! We had a great time hanging out around the house, putting together Legos and playing Chess. I also got to see Kiran cook the Indian version of funnel cake in a pan, which looked delicious! Deven rode his lowrider house-bike thing down the insanely beautiful hallways filled with light in their stunning house and we waited and waited for Maya to fall asleep for pictures, but she was really much more interested in whatever we were doing. :D I talked to Gita and Neil about their move to Chapel Hill from Boston, and admired their home and family. It was so great to meet and work with everyone involved and to get a glimpse into their family life this morning.