It seems like just yesterday we were photographing Maggie and Louis' Wedding in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Fast forward a few years, a cross country move and two babies later - this family has grown in size and love. It's not often we get to document personal friends of ours, but when it happens it's incredibly special. We enjoy every interaction with Maggie and Louis. They are thoughtful, smart and fun folks to be with. Their kids are lucky to have such strong role models in life! They welcomed their daughter in October and when they invited us to come take photos of their new family of four, we were honored. Big brother R seems to be settling into his role with such grace, and little C is just a bundle of sweetness. Maggie and Louis, we are lucky to call you friends. Thank you for allowing us to photograph your family!
2015 - In Review
2015 marks our fifth year documenting weddings full time. We've always said that you can enter a career by way of education or experience - and our path has been experience. Of course we are constantly pushing ourselves to take classes and workshops to learn more, but there are no professional photography degrees behind our team of photographers. In 1993, a professor at the University of Colorado - Anders Ericsson, wrote a paper about how 10,000 hours of experience will make someone an expert in their field. After five years, we've well passed the 10,000 mark, and while I wouldn't say we are experts, I can say this business has taught us far more than we ever thought possible about entrepreneurship, hard work, setting boundaries, weddings in every shape and form and dreaming big.
This year brought us documenting weddings in 13 states, photographing past (and new!) clients growing families and a true welcome as Midwest Photographers in addition to our New England base. With over 300,000 images processed (I'm not exaggerating) by Matt, myself, Chuck and Abby not to mention our crew of phenomenal second photographers - Missy, Jenny, Devin and Mike - it was a year of living and loving big. With the volume of work it might seem like we're a well oiled machine with lots of minions to keep things running. And while we have our workflow down, each and every wedding and portrait shoot is handled in our humble little studio without elaborate outsourcing. It's a labor of love, and one we are honored to call our life's work.
Thank you for joining us this year. From the highest points in Maine to the shores of the Mississippi River, we've been honored to tell these stories with our cameras. We are eternally grateful for your support and look forward to another year documenting love.
*Previous years in review: 2011, 2012 (part I, II, III), 2013, and 2014*
The B Family
We may be biased, but we have to believe the best Holiday gift a family can give is documenting a photo session for their family archives. Even in the corse of one year, children grow and change so rapidly, it's a treat to look back at the photos when your children were one, two, three, an so on. The B family invited us into their home to get some photos of their sweet family of three and it was such a treat spending time with them. Little E pretty much stole the show with her curious and playful spirit and sparkle in her eyes. It was clear that Ellie and Matt are such loving and grounded parents to her. We love this little session and hope you do too!
The S Family
It's hard to put into words how special this family is. I definitely get writers block because of all the wonderful things I could share with you about them. Since my time is brief, you should know this: The S Family are one of the most genuine, gracious and loving group people you will ever meet, and boy does it show in images! They have inspired so many to live more intentional lives and are actively changing the face of palliative care in the Midwest (and I'm convinced, soon to be our entire country). You can read and support more about this family on Dannell's beautiful blog here. It was my pleasure to photograph their family as they grow and blossom into the little people their boys are becoming, and the wisdom they are gaining in this parenting gig. Dannell and Peter, your love is infectious and your boys are incredibly blessed to have you. We're lucky to call you friends and clients.
The S Family
We're excited to share this sweet session with you today. It's always an honor to take photos for friends. It's also an honor to take photos for fellow professional photographers. So when Kirsten and Sean reached out to us to photograph their darling family of three in their home on the East Side of Saint Paul, it made our hearts very happy (since they are both dear friends AND Kirsten is a photographer). I love watching these two parent their curious and adventurous son. They are so great at letting him explore his world and also giving him a solid and nurturing environment to thrive. Little O is clearly used to having a camera in his face, so it was a lot of fun photographing him as he showed me around his yard and then his favorite toys and books. We're so grateful to capture these sessions for families. It's especially cool to take photos with the resident family photographer *in* the photos and not just behind the lens. We adore you Kirsten, Sean and little O!
Mini Family Session Remix
We're breaking our blogging mold today by sharing one big post as a recap of the last few months of mini family sessions we've been doing. What's a mini session, you might ask? Basically it's a shorter version of a traditional photo session where families shoot for only 20 minutes with us and the shoot yields a fewer number of delivered images. Typically, we schedule a marathon day for ourselves when we do minis so that we can shoot 15-20 families in one weekend. We had a mini marathon scheduled for June in Somerville, Mass and the weather didn't cooperate. Wouldn't you know it that the rain date got rained out too. So what were we to do except reschedule everyone at various times of the year during our travels to New England and also take advantage of the studio for some sessions during the rain. Everyone was so flexible and wonderful in scheduling again so basically what would have taken 2 days ended up getting scheduled in a three month span.
Now that you understand the back story let me gush a little bit about these beautiful families. I'm part of an online parents group that I joined a few weeks before our daughter was born. The group capped off around 200 women and basically we share bits and pieces of our lives as parents and people and show support for each other in our various journeys. It's an incredible group of smart, talented, strong, thoughtful and compassionate women. When several of them reached out to me to photograph their families, I opened up the opportunity to the group to plan out a mini session marathon. Getting to meet many of these families and children whom I've only met online was such a treat. I'm sure you can relate to the phenomenon of online friendships and how interesting the dynamic is when you know so much about some people but have never met them in person. I tell myself it's sort of like pen pals of old. :) I'm needing to end this post so I'll end with this: never have I been given so much joy as I am gifted as when I photograph families. The love is immeasurable and eternal and it's such a gift to document. If that's not an impetus for creating art I don't know what is. Thank you, S1TM's for showing up with so much love.
The B*D Family
In-home family sessions are some of our most favorite ways to document a family. Shoes are kicked off, people cozy up on the sofa and act like *themselves* together. Nothing is more inspiring or lovely than this. Someday when I look back on a season of my life, I want to remember it as it actually happened; the way your 5 week old's head smells, watching your first born become a big sister, the tears - the laughter - it's such a joyous time of life that is filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. When Hannah and Milan invited us to document their newly minted family of four we were beyond excited. We count these two as some of our dearest friends so spending this time together was such a gift to us. Thank you for allowing us into your home and hearts, Hannah and Milan. We love you four to the moon and back again!
The B*G Family
We love this job for so many reasons. The biggest being that we are given the honor of coming into people's lives during such emotional and vulnerable moments. Falling in love, getting engaged, getting married, having a baby and watching your family grow and change - these are the exciting years of life and it's with a full heart that we get to celebrate these times with our clients. When Maggie and Nick invited me to capture some photos of their sweet family on their little boy's first birthday I was so excited to document this stage for these three. Making it through the first year of your first child's life is a major accomplishment (those of you who have been there totally understand) and these two are doing life and parenting with such grace and ease. Their family radiates love and I hope the photos speak that to you today. Thank you for letting me into your beautiful lives, Maggie and Nick! Little G is irresistible!
Happy Birthday Baby P
If you're anything like me, you've gone through these photos at *least* 5 times to soak up the sweetness that Ashley and Adam's family boasts. I mean come on! Have you seen a more beautiful group? It's been such an honor photographing this family the past year. They decided to do a 'Grow with Me' collection with Summer Street, which means I've gotten to photograph their Maternity Session, Newborn Session, 6 month photos and now sweet baby P's 1st birthday. Now that these sessions are complete, we'll work with Adam and Ashley to put the highlights from each of these session into an heirloom album for them to look back on and enjoy over time. Baby P is turning into the most darling, smart little sweet heart. Ashley and I have grown very close over the past year, so it's always a special honor to photograph friends' lives as well. Adam and Ashley, thank you for allowing me to capture such a special time in your lives!
The M*L Family
We won't judge if you decide to look at this session again. And again. And again. We get the warm fuzzies when we look through these photos because it's almost as if the love this family shares oozes out of each image. When Kerry and Gordon asked us to capture some family photos in their backyard, with no agenda but to capture them at this moment in time, we were all in. Kerry and Gordon are raising their two girls with grace and heart. It's clear that they are doing a fantastic job by the joy that radiates from not only their faces, but their girls who only know love. Thanks for allowing us into your lives during this time that is filled to the brim! Now excuse us while we go look at this post again.