In the sun
In the sun I feel as one
In the sun
In the sun
Married
Married
Married
Buried, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
All in all is all we are
-Nirvana-
I am so excited to share these images with you all. This is a special shoot in my heart.
Lacey and I have been friends for quite awhile now - closing in on 10 years, I think? I had been creeping on her Facebook page way back in the day, and I mustered up the courage to ask her if she’d be willing to model for me for a styled shoot. To my surprise, she agreed! We quickly bonded over our shared love of rock and roll, and growing up in the same town all our lives (but not ever meeting beforehand..?!). In my early 20’s she was my main muse you could say - always down for an adventure and doing crazy things for an image - helping me grow and express myself through my art. If you’ve been following me for awhile, it’s not a stretch to think that you may recognize her.
While we don’t do many styled shoots like we used to, we still get together to snap images of her beautiful family. Repeat clients and longtime friends are my favorite - watching children grow, catching up, being relaxed and laughing - that’s my kind of session.
Despite all these things, we historically seem to have the worst luck when we plan things. This last session was no different.
The morning of our shoot, Lacey messaged me that her car wouldn’t start. The plan was that they were going to come up to me and we’d shoot over at Frenchman’s Bar (lots of variety, you’ve got the water and field, trees… what’s not to love). At this point, I am expecting for something to go wrong so I wasn’t totally surprised. After a couple hours go by of waiting to see what was going to happen, I said to heck with it - Penelope and I were going to come down (the shoot was going to happen come hell or high water). So we did. Easy peasy, all of our troubles were over, right?
Wrong.
We decided we were going to go to one of our favorite spots outside of a cemetery in a field - every time we had gone previously, the gate was open. As we are coming up on the gate we realize that it was closed (and someone was about to pull in and probably do some work). Mind you, we were in a race against the clock - if we didn’t move fast enough, we were going to miss the sun. I wasn’t going to wait to talk to whoever it was just to be told no (sorry, Joe).
I kept driving, racking my brain for a backup. I remembered I had seen on the map a pioneer cemetery on the other side of town. No people, high up, and it was far east enough to where there were plenty of patches of light to work with. It’s October, might as well do something spooky while we can.
We get out of the car and I’m packing up my kid. I remember saying something along the lines of “We’re going to make this work,” but in my head I was thinking “.. this has got to be one of my more crazy ideas, I can’t believe we are here.”
Remember how I said she was always willing to do crazy things for a shot? Well, nothing’s really changed there (and thank goodness for that).
Once we started shooting all of my nerves melted away and I really got into the zone of shooting - headstones or no headstones. We were careful of where we stepped and kept the kids from roaming too far. Eventually we stayed around the edges of the hill, taking in the gorgeous views of the farms around us. As the light started to turn the lovely golden orange I couldn’t help but think how lucky we were to find this place.
When we returned back home, I started thinking about how much of an honor it is to have been photographing the same family for so long. There’s so many talented folks out there, and knowing my friends keep choosing me - it warms my heart. I love seeing her kids grow and our children play together - it’s definitely a bright spot in my life, and something I’ll cherish forever.
I hope you love these images as much as I do.
-K.
