"Where should we meet for our photo session?" - Hollow Rock Edition

One of the most common questions to consider when booking a session for photos is location. I generally start by asking you first, what kind of photos are you hoping to have…outdoor colors, urban landscapes, or super homey images in your own home? Second, I usually ask where your kids are most comfortable. For younger kids and newborns, home is often easier than lugging all the equipment required to keep these little humans alive and fed and clean around with you. With mobile kids sometimes an adventure in a space that is meaningful to you as a family can be fun and encourage cooperation nicely. When I am photographing your family, I am less interested in what you look like, and way more interested in who you are in that moment. It is much easier for me to capture who you are as a family when you are interacting together as you normally would, with movement, the gamet of emotions, and some still moments together also. This is how I capture the moments of connections that comuunicate who you are as a family. It is beautiful to behold and do not take for granted what a privilege it is for me.

These little explorers found plenty of wonder to keep the adventure interesting.

Hollow Rock has become a favorite spot of mine. It is close to town (Durham) and is very accesible for people of mixed abilities with a paved parking lot and a very short walk to the meadow. There is plenty to explore within the meadow, but it also has short trails for littler legs as well as Hope Creek that runs through it. The Thomas’ met me for a sunrise session which gave us completely different light and angles to work with. I am NOT typically a morning person, but littles often are and honestly, with this kind of light, it is absolutely worth that not-so-bright and early alarm.

Here is the magic of Hollow Rock, though…not only is sunrise stunning, it rolls out the red carpet at sunset also!

Truth be told, location only matters as much as you in it. You are the ones that bring the magic. I just like to provide a setting condusive to your magic. Stay tuned for more posts on other locations for you to consider.

Everyday Mundane - May/June

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” F. Scott Fitgerald, The Great Gatsby

I have always referred to May as May Mahem in our house. Within a 6 week period starting in late April we celebrate 4 birthdays, 1 anniversary, Mother’s Day and all the end of school year extras piled in between. It is all good, joyous fun, but someone who is not bent toward detail management, it can also feel downright stressful. I have learned to step back from all other extras when possible and this year that looked like forgetting to post to social media…for 6 weeks! Yes, I said I forgot. It was not a principally guided decision, I made no announcements and deleted nothing from my phone. I just could not muster the energy to jump back in once I missed a week or so. I like to think it is evidence of growth in listening to my soul needs, being present to the moments fully without the pressure to document for social media. I think it is likely just that I couldn’t muster the energy it takes, to hell with the algorhythm.

Given May Mayhem, and especially the unique circumstances of a year of school within a pandemic, we were all limping into the summer this year. If I’m honest, I was very apprehensive about it would all go down. I knew we needed summer, but was I ready for what it might bring?

“You own the day. You own the night. You put stars and sun in place. You laid out the four corners of the earth, shaped the seasons of summer and winter.”

Psalm 74:17 (MSG)

Where did you see God in June?

The truth is, everywhere and no where in particular. In long days of light and the fullness of a green yard of established plants that I PUT IN THE GROUND 4 years ago. Anyone who has been around knows that our story has involved multiple moves in a relatively short amount of time (13 houses and 5 states in 20 years of marriage!). In North Carolina we have made a commitment to building a “culture of staying” as we like to call it, both for the health of our marriage and our kiddos. We are now in year 4 at this particular house (the longest stint in home we have ever had) and there was a moment this summer when I was training the vines we planted 4 years ago on a trellis over our garage and Lee stepped back and observed, “Those vines only have about one more growing season before they meet in the middle. This must be what a culture of staying looks like.” And it is. And I have marveled all spring and summer at this vine we have nurtured for 4 springs and 4 summers, through 4 falls and 4 winters. Staying is a choice. It is a choice to say no to certain adventures in order to say yes to the adventure of watching a plant YOU PUT IN THE GROUND grow season after season. And along with it relationships and stability and discomforts we are forced to address, as well as seeing people you know in the grocery or running into a friend randomly at a park.

I saw him on the backside of a mountain after dropping off my youngest two for a week of camp FOR THE FIRST TIME. As I began a panic attack and reached for my phone to call a friend, I had no cell service and in the quiet the Spirit whispered to me, “You know my care for your children is so much more than you could ever to care for them.” And in that moment I realized that a week of camp was just as a good for me as it was for them.

I saw God in music flowing from my children’s fingers, in bees buzzing in lavender and in a regular dinner date with friends we’ve known and who have known us for a very long time. I have seen him in grief and in the unknown…again. In loneliness and in closing doors, not knowing what might be next.

I saw God in an adventure to the Haw River Bynum Bridge to make our graffiti mark and in a massive used bookstore right outside Mebane.

I saw him in church history and back porch prayer sessions with bourbon in hand while the smoker heats up for dinner. All of it, every single one, holy.

What have you been thinking about most in June?

If I’m honest, my 16 year old reader has turned me on to the Grishaverse (thank you Leigh Bardugo), so a lot of my brain has been filled with Ravka and the Crows and the Sun Saint v/s the Darkling, and will Nikolai, after it all, keep his throne?? But when I am not immersed in YA fiction, I find myself asking a lot of questions about the role of women within the church and what that means for me, about how to parent each individual kid in the unique ways they need, the unique blend of enneagram types within a family while also allowing myself space so I won’t implode or explode, or both at the same time. And in most recent days, I keep asking myself the same question…Is this the right work for me? Am I doing the right work each day? This is less a question about career, more about my why and how I spend the hours of my day. Are you exhausted yet? Welcome to my brain. Which leads us to the final question…

What is one word to describe what you hope for as we move into July?

Peace.

Peace in my home, peace in my heart. And playfulness, which I think probably is a symptom of peace. We are beginning to fall into the rhythm of summer and it is working. I want to give myself more freedom and grace to rest and play in the summer months we have left. The biggest challenge to rest, for me, is in my own head.

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the gras on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.” - John Lubbock

That will be my quest in July.

Kevin + Gretta

Wrightsville Beach, NC - Summer 2020

Laurissa + John

June 6, 2019

A lovely farmhouse wedding.

Amanda + Nick - Museum of Life and Science

Amanda and Nick were able to pull together an elopement wedding that was tailored perfectly to their personalities and wants and desires. From the pre-wedding gathering and photos at The Unscripted Hotel in downtown Durham to the ceremony amidst the butterflies at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, every minute of it was exactly as it should have been.