family photojournalism :: the englishes

nathan is an accomplished photographer. i mean, seriously. and his wife jana is a creative culinary whiz. we have indirectly known one another through mutual friends for several years now, and i that time we have each had 2-3 kids and have grown tremendously as photographers. but more important than the photography fellowship and good cooking (hehe), and what draws me to this family, is their sincere love for one another, their integrity in all things, and how real they are with one another and those who know them. they radiate Jesus, even via social media and in passing interactions. 

so when i was searching my mind for a family who might be game for allowing me to do some portfolio-building in the form of a family photojournalism session, nathan and jana came to mind quite quickly. happily, they were game for allowing me to join them for a usual thursday evening in their home with their three tiny people, ben, norah, and olive. 

i was so warmed by this evening with them, just soaking up their goodness and chatting in the spaces between action moments. 

thanks, guys, for letting me in. you're beautiful. 

what follows is probably too many photos, but it was just too hard to narrow it down. should i apologize? nah! ;)

personal :: birthday adventuring

hazel has been looking forward to her birthday for fully six months. having no real grasp of time, every time anyone's birthday was happening, she would think it was also hers. we tried to explain that it would be her turn when there were leaves on the trees and the weather turned warm, which had limited success. 

at last, her very own birthday arrived. ever since this winter, she has been consistently asking for cake, balloons, and a kite... at the beach. so we determined that we would make those things the backbone of her birthday this year, in lieu of a party or gifts. and, since she is also interested in trains, and tim discovered that the Amtrak station in St. Joseph is right across the street from the beach, we decided we'd get there via train. to put the icing on the cake, we invited her cousins, aunt and uncle, gaba (grandma) and great aunt to meet us at the beach.

it was a gift of a day. hazel was ceaselessly overjoyed, which meant that we were, too, of course. and after returning home, she told anyone who would listen, "hey, know what? it's my birthday right now! i'm 3!"

i invite you to come along, virtually, on our adventure day... beginning from the moment she woke up... and ending with the moment she fell asleep again (en route back home). 

it's so fun to do these mini visual stories for my own family, though my one regret is that it usually means i'm absent from the images (ah, the plight of the photographer-mama!). but that's why YOU might want to consider having some like me come on over and tell one of your family's stories with my camera. so that, for once, you an also be in the photo-documentation of those stories. i'm serious! do it! :)

life with a newborn :: ellison

about 6 weeks ago, i photographed ellison's birth. then my favorite thing happened: her mom and dad also invited me back for a newborn session. i'm always so glad when i get to see the babies whose births i photographed, whether by watching them grow on facebook or photographing them with their families later on. 

here's a few bits of fun background information to flesh out the story these images tell...

• amy created the loveliest, and most unabashedly girly nursery for their sweet girl. so we hung out in there quite a while. the walls were the palest whisper of pink. 
• i got a little carried away when darren leaned over ellison and started tenderly touching and talking to her. absolutely heart-melting. also heart-melting was darren carrying ellison around in his dirt bike shop, talking with her about the adventures they'd have in the future. 
• though i'm not really a pet photographer, darren and amy's pets -- a dog and a cat -- were very present throughout their session, and i think they add something so special. both are protective of the newest member of their family. 
• amy is a dancer and just generally a mover, which has translated into ellison being rather addicted to movement. there was so much swaying and bouncing going on during our session, that my camera's auto-focus was working hard to keep up. :) but i just love that ellison still craves her mama's unique movements, and goes to calm when she's in her arms. 

without further ado, here's ellison at [almost] six weeks old...

also note: this is session is a pretty typical example of how i do newborn sessions. i'm not a baskets/headbands/props/body-wraps/poses kind of photographer. i prefer to keep babies in the spaces they normally occupy, and in the arms that are usually holding them. to me, this seems the more authentic thing, the thing i'd want to catch in a bottle and keep forever. it's what's so sweet about newborn-hood. of course, this is right in line with my family photojournalism practice. :)

family photojournalism :: the huffs

katie, chris, and their kiddos tucker and savannah, registered for one of my spring mini-sessions a little while before they were given a hard-to-swallow diagnosis for tucker. and though the diagnosis made sudden sense out of so many behaviors and struggles over the previous two years, it also puts a certain weight on the future, a weight they were carrying with them on the day of mini-session sunday.

so, coming into the mini-session -- which are usually more posed, intentional family portraits -- they did not have high hopes of achieving a hold-still-and-smile set of images with tucker. honestly, that was (and is always) more than okay with me. so, we threw that expectation out the window and i said, "let's just follow him around and play. we'll see what happens." with the tension thus diffused, and tucker free to be his wild and active little boy self, we climbed fences and lept off them, did a few rounds of peek-a-book from the men's outhouse, and finally kicked off shoes and got into the creek. 

the end result is something that i just love. a story emerged that is really about tucker (but don't feel too badly for savannah, she had her own "milk time" session recently). to me, these photos celebrate tucker, in all his wild wonder. looking through these images of him playing, and his family right there with him in the midst of it, you can't help but fall a little bit in love with the cutie. 

personal :: a breakfast story

this month i decided to invest a bit in my own growth as a photographer. so i enrolled in molly flanagan's visual storytelling class at the define school. i knew that in some ways it wouldn't be revolutionary, since the art of family photojournalism is one i've been practicing for a while, and offering to clients. but molly is tremendous, and under her teaching i've been happily stretched by her perspective, her wit, her humility, and the way that she clarifies the art of telling a story with pictures. the homework assignments have been invitations to slow down and really examine my process, what i'm doing and why. i'm learning to be more careful, more sparing in the number of shutter clicks, more intentional in how i compose an image so that each has purpose.

for my week 4 homework assignment, i had to tell as story in 20 images or less. so... 

this is the story of our weekly breakfast with [some of] the stockbridge boiler room core leadership team and vision course student, in which we eat pancakes, drink coffee, worship jesus, and are happily interrupted a million times by our kids. 

thanks for listening to my story. i'd be delighted if you'd allow me to tell one of YOUR stories in 50-75 images. :)

personal :: long days, short years (Part 2)

it wasn't long before Gus was born that i settled into my "signature style," which is what we photographers call the combination of shooting and editing that we consistently do to achieve a consistent look that clients will associate with our "brand." i've been happy for this, because it means that -- unlike hazel's life -- Gus' life thus far has been documented in a pretty cohesive style. 

but that's not really as important as that it is documented at all. it's actually neat to look back through past work, before i settled into my signature style, and be able to recall my own growth as a person and as a photographer over those months and years. 

mom's don't get to be IN the picture very often, but we can get clues about ourselves by looking at the photos we've taken through  a different perspective. see, the subject of the photograph is only part of the story; the one who is seeing and showing the subject is the other part. it will be interesting, years from now, to see not only this record of my childrens' growth, but of mine as well. 

one other thought: in my last post about "long days, short years," i wrote about the limitations of Smile and Mini-Sessions. i fear i may have cheapened them. i didn't mean to. see, i think they're great. in fact, i try to put a little bit of that "portrait" element into each photojournalism session i do, too. conversely, i always try to put a little photojournalism into my portrait sessions, by capturing the moments in between the poses and "cheeses." so that flavor runs through every type of session that i do. 

but...

without further ado or more random thoughts, i offer you what you really came here for: a small selection of Gus' first year, photojournalistic style.