i asked my friend emily to just write a little paragraph about what she had hoped to get out of our shoot – and her words, combined with the visuals of the photographs has made me tear up. it’s beyond special.
she is so gifted in writing. so here are her words – to go with my wordless love demonstrated in photograph…..
To capture us.
I didn’t want to do a big professional photo-shoot until I knew our family was complete. Getting to that point has been a journey full of ups and downs, but when our third daughter was born I felt we had arrived at “complete” and were ready for some pictures. There was only one person I wanted to capture our crew, my dear friend Stacy, but for a while I hesitated to book a shoot because, well, we aren’t particularly fancy or stylish and I didn’t think our little ragamuffin family was worthy of her talent.
But as I looked through Stacy’s family photo shoots I realized something…it’s not that Stacy photographs only amazingly beautiful people…what makes her photography so lovely, so captivating, is that she somehow captures the natural beauty that is inside each person, each family. That is what I wanted – our family’s signature beauty to be captured.
The 5 of us are a happy, loving, messy, joyful ball of chaos and THAT is what I trusted Stacy to catch and document. I wanted some fraction of how I feel about my spectacular little girls, and how we all feel about each other and this gorgeous place we live to come through in photos. I wanted snapshots of the joy of childhood, the bond between sisters, the innocence and mischief in my girls eyes, the lush green retreat of our backyard, my husband and daughters playing in the water and sand at their most special place. I wanted pictures of the little moments and details and looks that may seem insignificant, but are actually where life happens. I wanted something that my husband and I could look back on together and remember the beautiful mess of this intense, exhausting, gorgeous stage of life.
The experience of the photo-shoot was so natural and fun and actually felt like a gift in and of itself. For two hours I felt like I was outside myself watching these three amazing little creatures God has seen fit to bless me with. I felt close to tears just watching them twirl, and laugh, and run, and fall, and climb, and just be themselves. The fact that this shoot ended up with all of us in the ocean in our clothes is a delightfully accurate portrayal of our family and a testimony to Stacy’s natural style. She let us be us.
I have a feeling we will come across more serene and lovely in the pictures than we really are, but I think that might actually be the true magic of Stacy’s photography. All of that beauty is in all of us all the time, and it just takes a special person to see it and capture it.
Thank you Stacy, for capturing a little bit of us that we can cherish, remember, and hold on to forever. I can’t wait to see what beauty you found through your lens.
on top of the world. your family is amazing. xoxo
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