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.

Meaghan and Alex’s wedding in 2016 was a fan favorite, but also a photographer favorite. His suit! Her dress! The fall leaves! The venue! The colors! Literally everythinggggg was beautiful and fantastic and gorgeous and these are two hella stylish people. Well they just had a hella stylish baby named Helen who is ADORBS and likes French things, pulling at her dad’s beard, throwing up on everyone, smiling at the cat, and grabbing emphatically toward camera lenses. Also, 80s campers. Their house is awesome and I was fully expecting it to be great, but then Meaghan conveniently didn’t tell me about the CHICKENS which made it even more awesome because every portrait session is better with chickens (also large orange cats named Stewie who insert themselves into every picture). So I was pretty happy photographing a handful of animals (also Jemma the husky-corgi mix and Quinn the hound-terrier mix!) and a handful of very lovely people and also my first 1980s camper. Much thanks to Meaghan and Alex for always keeping things stylish and fun to photograph in every way, even while being actively vomited upon.

Little James recently turned one year old, and every good one year old worth his salt has a totally awesome Batman jacket. James came with sunglasses, little adorable canvas shoes, a heavy appetite for goldfish crackers and ice cream, and two fabulous parents who like 90s rock as much as we do and were able to hold actual conversations about The Presidents of the United States of America and the Counting Crows. Also the Batman soundtracks (of course!). We met at the fountain in downtown Cary and walked around with these awesome guys, hitting up a flowering tree or two and doing our best to avoid grass (James, new to walking, has an extreme grass-aversion. He won’t walk on it, won’t touch it, and has a zero grass tolerance policy). There was also much cat discussion (this family has two, named after cheeses) and a lot of airplane noises made in the direction of James in attempts to get him to smile while we were in the vicinity of grass (which worried him). So here are some pictures of this adorable little boy and his parents, celebrating his birthday and his newfound walking skills and shunning grass at every turn. Happy birthday, James!

Emily and Lloyd are cat people, and I was told that there would be three cats present at June’s newborn shoot, but that I would likely see only one as the others are skittish. HOWEVER, I appear to be like a calm Cat Pied Piper of Durham, as when I arrive, I became flocked with cats (and with Bongo, in particular, the black and white tuxedo cat who I swear is a distant relative of my own cat Buckles). Anyway, there were three cats, all of whom were fluffy and all of whom I petted with great joy in between photographing the lovely miss June, newborn extraordinaire. Note her incredible tomato hat (knitted by her mom). June is crazy cute (takes after her parents who are just wonderful!), and she is one of the most peaceful babies I’ve had the pleasure of photographing. She only half-cried kind of vaguely once at the very end of her session. The rest of the time she was super chill, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep. I attribute her success to the fluffy presence of the cats somehow… always watching over her, guarding her… gently dusting her, everyone else, and all they see with cat hair. A truly fluffily adorable household.