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.

Vivi // At Four Years

The triumphant return of Vivi! This is our third year (year one, year two) documenting this adorable little girl as she runs around parks and picks up every stick she can find. We don’t pose her, but rather just follow her around as she picks up sticks, uses them as reindeer antlers, and then runs up a hill as fast as she can to find yet another stick. This year she recognized us and talked a ton, and I threatened to steal her cat boots on more than one occasion. I also showed her pictures of our cats on my phone because little kids are a great captive audience and I will talk to anyone willing to listen about our cats. She danced, played air guitar and jumped.

Vivi is less into turning every single doorknob this year, and more into hiding behind lamp posts. She still likes to make a run for all spots of potentially poisonous plants, but this year also added a literal hives of bees to her repertoire of things she really, really wants to play with. Vivi also finally gave us her opinions on Star Wars this year (she doesn’t like Chewbacca). However, her parents quickly debunked her statements (she does like Chewbacca). She buried a seed this year (I have no idea what was planted), and was curious about every bird house. Rocking chairs and porch steps are still a favorite (glad to see some things don’t change). Vivi is one of our very favorite clients, not only because the session can literally go anywhere Vivi takes us (it’s her world, we are just living in it), but also because it gives me much needed cardio since she runs full tilt for the majority of the time. THOSE CAT BOOTS THOUGH.

Lauren+Michael+Harrison // Newborn.

We are so excited to introduce you all to Lauren and Michael, and their newborn son Harrison, who is stunning and handsome and wears a lot of hats (not like, in the figurative sense where he has a lot of different roles to play, but rather in the literal sense that he actually does wear a lot of hats). Michael is Kevin’s cousin, and we were so honored to do more work for this awesome family and get to know him and Lauren better (and also their loudly purring cat named Topanga *cue Boy Meets World song*). So they had us over one rainy day shortly after Harrison was born to take pictures of his tiny self in his many hats hanging out with his family and his grandparents. And everything was well and good until it started rainy incredibly hard and got so ridiculously dark that we had to come back a different day when it was brighter to retake some of the photos so they weren’t so gloomy and daaaaark. So if it looks like the set above was taken on two different days, that’s because it was. The good news is that Harrison decided to sleep the second time we were there (yay!) so it was a win-win for sunshine and sleepiness. :)

At Home with John+Anna.

We have been so lucky over the past few years to gain some family portrait clients who make us feel like we’re part of their own family and we just love them so so much that we could squeeze them all to pieces. This is one of those families. Last year we met Anna, John, their daughter Lou, and their pup Keva, and they ran around and we photographed them being adorable. Lou was talkative to her parents, but was semi skeptical of us as most two year olds are (why are these people in my house?).

Fast forward a year and a half, and we suddenly and inexplicably gained all of Lou’s trust, and she immediately launched into a detailed speech regarding tigers, dinosaurs, and pajamas with feet upon our arrival. She sometimes prefers to eat breakfast while wearing a helmet, and insisted on having a temporary tattoo to match Mr. Geoff’s real tattoo. She also has a new little brother, Gus, who is just as friendly, only without words. He prefers spending his time chewing on giraffes and smiling happily at everyone.

We crashed Matchbox cars! We made pretend nighttime with a tent! We gave a full sleeve of temporary tattoos to a 3 year old! At some point a very scary monkey also made an appearance, and we might’ve asked if John and Anna would give us ice cream (they did). It was the best day.

Also, if you’re curious, Anna is a professional illustrator and does some pretty rad artwork of adorable kids and pigs and once drew a picture of myself, Geoff, and our two cats riding in a Viking ship.