It’s always a treat to see this family – not only because I’ve been photographing Erika and Emmanuel for so long, and not only because their kid is the perfect combination of the two of them and is SO funny and adorable, and not only because there are always extremely cute animals involved (shout out to Beans and Habanero who made appearances this year) – but because someone is always wearing a bowtie and because we embrace whatever life throws at us, including a very rainy day. Halloween is also usually involved in some manner – this year we showcased our seasonal spirit by donning a grim reaper costume while holding a black cat, pretending to have a pumpkin head, showing off a skeleton friend, drawing a large Halloween mural, and of COURSE pretending to be a family full of the friendliest, cutest zombies (which was a throwback to Erika and Emmanuel’s wedding photos, which their kid saw and wanted to replicate, which is even cuter). No one knows how to have fun and seize the day quite like them and I’m just happy to be a part of it.
It was wonderful to reunite with Caitlin and Christopher thirteen years after shooting their wedding in 2011! They look exactly the same somehow so I can only assume that in those thirteen years they were off discovering a secret elixir or something. They now have two wonderful children who are a DELIGHT. The oldest enjoys climbing trees, looking for worms, giving elaborate high fives where she insists on a running start from a great distance away, reading books, carrying around a gem that she named Gemmy, and of course, wearing a gold sequin cape. The gold sequin cape, folks, was the highlight of my year so far. There’s never a time where gold sequins don’t photograph fabulously and she knew it. She’s spunky and full of life and confident and obviously has great taste in capes.
The youngest enjoys all things city planning. He has a passion for Sanitation Engineering, specifically. He enjoys rolling around his custom garbage bin that’s pre-filled with [safe] garbage, and he enjoys picking up sticks at the park and putting them into the sewer grate so that “no one trips.” It looks like he’s having an involved discussion with Pennywise most of the time, but rest assured that he’s just out there doing his job so that when you visit the park later on, you don’t unwittingly step on a stick and suffer a terrible fall. The kids also filled my sweater pockets with Japanese Maple leaves and random pieces of pottery. They’re excellent at finding little treasures. In addition, they have an incredible dog Lylah that’s now my best friend, and they have the best taste in bird wallpaper. I think they’re great and I hope you enjoy this fun little spring session.
I do believe that this blog post calls for a wonderful celebratory dance as it marks the 7th time I’ve photographed Amy & Ben! Which means I’ve also photographed Lucy & Elaine (adorable cats!) at least four times, and Nathan three times (four times there as well if you count in utero). This is, however, my very first time photographing Avi, and my first time photographing the DeLorean (very important). We had a great time! Last time I saw Nathan, he was pretty young and not yet a NASA engineer/astronaut. Now he’s 5 and definitely a NASA engineer/astronaut. This kid knows more about the scientific and robotic aspects of rockets than any adult I know. I couldn’t follow the science or math of anything he said because I’ve always been more of an English class sort of girl, but it sounded official, and he had many books that he referenced to back him up. I have zero doubt that he will one day go to space. Avi is cool with space and everything, but he’s much more interested in becoming my protege or having any job that requires him to press a lot of buttons. He liked my camera. A lot. He liked taking selfies and he liked pressing the shutter button and he tried multiple times to press the format button and also to take video. Maybe a photographer, maybe a director — definitely in the film industry or at a control switch with the most buttons ever. Oh oh, we could potentially have a brother NASA duo on our hands, and Avi could control the giant switchboard that launches the rockets. There has to be one enormous button to push to launch the rocket, right? I don’t know the answer to that, but I’m sure Nathan does. Love these folks and their brilliant kids and beautiful felines!