It's About Time (to tell your story) | laura ann photography, Cary, Raleigh, Durham, & Chapel Hill, NC Family Photographer
Do you have enough time?
In early December, I was thrilled to photograph this family in their home as they prepped for the holiday season. The mother wanted to capture the fun and joy that she and her children felt during this time of year. They like to bake cookies, drink hot cocoa, play legos and truly enjoy their time together when the kids are off from school. (Thank you for the year-round calendar option Wake County Schools!)
A family session with Laura Ann Photography is ideal for this exact type of story, so I knew it was going to be great. I also knew what I was doing for this mom and her kids. I was giving them the gift of time. Through my work, I am able to give families time to slow down during the hustle and bustle to just play and be with her kids for a few hours. How many of us would give anything for just a few extra hours in our day? I know I would! I feel the guilt every time I tell my own children that I can't do something with them because I don't have time for it right then.
What if you could freeze time?
With one click the camera shutter, a moment can be frozen for us forever. (Perhaps, not forever, but that is a totally separate blog post!) I see this all the time. We all do. Posts come up in our Facebook feed from 5 years ago, 3 years ago, etc. Our friends and family sharing their "old" images and we all comment on how we remember that moment or we remember when their kids were that little.
It is truly something special to be able to document our lives and tell our stories.
Our life stories are important. The stories are fluid and always changing in some way. Sometimes, even within seconds of taking a photo, something can change. For example, the day after this session, the family went away on a trip to a cabin. They had a great time with their extended family but unfortunately one of their child's loveys was misplaced and never made it home. I didn't know this until a couple weeks after the session when I shared their slideshow and images with them. They were all so sad when they told me, but they had hope that he could be found. I was heartbroken when I heard this (I have kids with loveys, too. I totally get it.) At the same time I was relieved that they would have this next image from our session.
Fast forward about a month and it turns out that the bear was found! The owners of the cabin that the family had rented, found him and returned him to the family. (Shout out to Great Outdoor Rentals - in Gatlinburg, TN !!) When the mother told me this news, I just about jumped for joy. Even though I was so glad I had gotten this image for them, I was thrilled that bear was back - what a relief!
Spending the morning documenting these kids and their mom was just plain fun!
When I say that it was a blast, it's an understatement. These kiddos are super sweet, well-mannered and interesting conversationalists! (Although my photography style is to be a "fly on the wall", kids can't help but talk to me.) And their mother - she's just awesome, sweet, soft-spoken and exudes love towards her littles.
Scroll through for some highlights from their in-home documentary family session.
One final thought on "time".
The result of this session is a lifetime of being able to go back in "time". The time that is spent on a family session with Laura Ann Photography is fun, it's easy (just be you and do what you always do), and it's value is undeniably priceless. To be able to gather around an album years from now and see your life in images - there is nothing that compares to that.