Lynn Family- On location in Tampa

While in Tampa visiting my brother's family, I got to photograph them in their new home of Tampa, Florida.  It might have been raining and unplanned, but I love it! My brother is the youth pastor at an urban church and as we walked out the doors into the drizzly day, but I saw this overhang with great coastal color, I had to brighten up the rainy afternoon ahead with some cheery portraits. 

This Season: T's first year

A special little guy just had his first birthday! Baby T is ready to cruise the streets and and enjoy this next chapter ahead: Adventures in Toddlerhood. I loved photographing this family for a This Season session. We spent a great morning together enjoying his special Radio Flyer tricycle, a breakfast picnic, and walk through their neighborhood park, which just so happens to be Forest Park. Can't beat that! 

What I love about a session like this is getting really personal with a family. They really let their guard down and engaged with each other, laughing, munching, and playing. I got up close and in their face, but they were perfectly in tune with spending time together, and I love the special, relaxed glimpses we get into their family life.

This Season: Dinosaurs

I write often about seasons and our This Season package here and on social media. I think one of the reasons I love it so much is because I see these special glimpses of my every day life that are simply wonderful. Full of wonder.

I step back often and have to just take in the incredible life that God has given to my family. Certainly there are challenges and hard parts, but alongside that- and perhaps because of that, sitting in almost magical contrast are the sweet, miraculous, and warming moments that fill us up, let us savor the goodness.

The seasons change often all too quickly, and the little moments change. The light that drifts through the window is filtered through leaves that come with the freshness of spring. The interests of our children shift and wane and blossom. The milestones and rhythms of our families change as our children grow up.

Our middle son amazes me. Even in this year of change in our family, with three rowdy boys, two of which are preschool age, he takes a long chunk of almost every afternoon to enter into imaginative play and whispers to himself involved stories and complex characters. There are voices and independence and creativity. I tend to let him play alone, but one afternoon in midwinter, I asked if I could observe him with my camera. Unscripted. Unposed. No consulting mom on wardrobe.

Special details that make the difference. Slouchy socks, train shirt, necklace from the treasure box at school transformed into a form of dino transportation, and PopPop's hand-carved dinosaurs.

This is his season of imagination.

Unfazed by my camera, this is what I saw.

T turns one!

I had the joy of photographing Jessica and Lonny on their wedding day a few years ago, and they simply love each other so much.  You can tell they shower their son with that same enthusiastic love and he just lit up seeing the smiles on his parent's faces.

Happy first birthday, T! You are such a champ!

Baby T

This little guy was a bundle of joy and it was so fun to spend a bit of my morning with his parents and grandmother who all just loved each other so well. I know I say it almost every time, but I love every time I get to photograph someone in their home or at their front door- this time I got to do both.

I am looking forward to seeing Baby T grow and that big toothless grin change as he gets older.

Red Thread Session

I am a volunteer photographer for Red Thread Sessions, and I have really been enjoying sessions of new families who have joined together through adoption. This family is really special to me because we have ventured together on this journey and brought our sons home a week apart. We shared in the trials of adopting from a virtually closed nation but never giving up because our sons are fully worth every bit and more. 

Though I briefly met this brave, sharp young man just hours before he flew to the US from his birth country, I had the privilege of sharing part of the morning with him recently.  Welcome to St. Louis, E! We are very glad to have you. 

Black and White Boy

I have had the honor of photographing this family from engagement session to wedding to the newness of a son at all his young ages and stages, and even of their homes as they have moved and transitioned.  I was so excited to continue to document their journey as a family at a new house with their now three year old boy.  His vigor mixed with contemplative spirit really shone through in a number of the black and white photographs I created of him.  I am eager to share a few!

Red Thread Session with a BAM!

It's been quiet here for a while, as I have been on maternity leave.  We adopted our youngest son and brought him home from Ghana after quite a lengthy battle to bring our family under one roof.  It was fitting for me to ease my way back in to a short fall season with a Red Thread Session.  I volunteer with Red Thread Sessions to provide photography for families who have recently adopted, and it's such a an honor to introduce a new family through photographs.

Not only did we photograph these two lovely ladies in a way you might expect from a PLP family session, but we also did something special.  Part of their personal adoption story included a special connection to DC comic book characters.  A few years ago now, a friend donated a very large poster collection to Brian and I to aid in our fundraising efforts- a large portion of which was DC comic book characters.  We got bogged down in paperwork and never sold them.  As soon as I read their story, I knew that the person who donated the posters would be honored by them being used as a background for their portraits- a story-telling element and something really unique.  This person has a huge heart for adoption and is an adult-adoptee.  They gave the OK for us to use them in this way and I set to trying to find a way to create something.

My favorite part of the session was when this lovely young lady asked me, "Can I hold my mom's hand and look at her? She just makes me so happy!"

This photograph also really touched me.  You can see this new mother's heart through her facial expressions of tenderness, protection, and satisfaction.  This daughter is so dear to her. Likewise, her daughter's face is so joyful.  She simply could not stop smiling when she was close to her mother. It was so beautiful.

Kansas City Parking Garage Portraits

I am so excited to share a few images from this session for two reasons.

First, when I am walking or driving around anywhere, I have a small conversation going on with myself in the background of my mind. I am asking, "If you had to photograph here, how would you do it? Could you make it work? How would you light it?"

I was headed to Kansas City for a conference last weekend, but knew that I was going to photograph the wonderful Peres family. Having checked the weather, I saw that it was going to be a rather dreary day. Rain. Not quite warm enough to feel refreshed by the rain. And yet, I didn't have any other days with which to reschedule. My tight schedule on the day of the session also, didn't allow us to travel far from the conference location so I could choose a suitable indoor location.

What to do? Use what you've got- a parking garage. I knew that we were going for cityscape backgrounds, so I figured getting us higher than street level was a win anyway, and the overhang from the garage would provide coverage from the rain and perhaps even good light.

After we shot in the garage, the rain let up just long enough to for us to quickly play around in the sprinkles and highlight the families love for superheroes and karate on the roof. Inspired by The Incredibles, "It's a whole family of supers!"

The second reason I love this session is because of the ability of a photograph to show the realness of a person. I love when people respond to photographs with an exclamation about how an expression so fully displays the "real" person. I have known this couple since I was 11 years old, and they hold such a special place to my husband and I that they stood up for our marriage by serving as the Best Man and Matron of Honor at our wedding.

I don't often know the couples and families I photograph quite that well.  However, since I do with this family, it was a special gift for Brian and I to look through each frame and find ourselves amazed  that we can almost hear the exact laugh that Wendee or Josh uttered. Or we know the tone of voice that slipped through Josh's lips at a certain moment. It might not have been the technically perfect "photo face," but yet it was just the exact moment that we know that expression so well, and it feels dear.

My Lovely Levi

As important as it is to create the images to accompany your wedding day or the growth of your children, it is also so valuable to me to document my own children.  Not just on the big, important days of their lives, but also on the silly afternoons spent laughing on the couch.  These are the days that shape the lives of my children, and the days that I value so much.

Here are a few photographs of moments I spent with my middle-est, no longer my little-est.