It's always such an honor when I book a new client for family pictures. They trust me enough to tell their story in photographs. But to have a friend and neighbor hire me is like a whole other level of gratitude! Cassandra and Ron live about a five minute walk from my house. I see Josi nearly every week in the summer when she attends my children's art classes. These pictures were a big deal for Cass - she had never had professional photographs taken of her and Ron, let alone with their kids. Talk about adding to the pressure! When we sat down to design their photoshoot we ended up choosing Wheeler Farm to catch some of the last bit of color of fall. 

     While at the photoshoot, Tres kept getting distracted by all the sticks! To help him focus and turn it into a game, we hid his stick in his back pocket! That stick made it into a good chunk of photos. It was a fun little way of playing a game to get him interested in the camera and giggling because of his secret! Cassandra had told me prior to the shoot that Skylee, their oldest, was super interested in photography. During posing and metering I would think aloud so that she could hear my thought process behind each pose and direction. That is not as easy as it sounds! Hopefully what I was saying made sense, I realized half the time that I would start out a sentence and then slowly fade off as I studied the light. 

      By the end of the shoot the kids were getting antsy, John was getting fussy and Josi just wanted to race everyone. I struck up a deal with her; if she could hang in there for a few more shots, we'd have a foot race and I'd photograph the winner crossing the finished line. Worked like a charm. I was able to get the last family pose that I wanted with a few more break downs and then we were done! Josi used Tres' stick to draw a line across the gravel path. I stood on my mark and yelled, "Ready, set go!" Skylee is a good big sister and humored the kids - same with Ron and Cassandra. But man, Tres was in it to win it. He probably would've had a better chance had he worn the suspenders Cass had picked out and didn't have to run holding up his pants. Josi crossed the finished line and just like that, we were done.