the stern family | in the light

I met Megan when I was a teenager wanting to teach violin lessons out of my tiny apartment in college. Megan was a little girl with tons of talent who took me up on it. I taught her a few years and then moved away. Thanks to Facebook we stayed in touch and as she grew and became her own incredible person. When I came out publicly with my struggle with bipolar disorder I was flooded with so many people and their own struggles. I wasn’t alone. Megan was one of them. She opened up to me about being diagnosed, about her struggle through pregnancy, and motherhood and the darkness that she faced. I knew that darkness like it was a blanket. I found such comfort in her knowing many of my own personal battles and we bonded so many years after even physically seeing oneanother.

One day this fall, Megan reached out to me when she knew she was going to be a couple of hours away from where I lived and asked if I could meet them and do their first official family portraits since their son came into the world. I agreed and we figured out a time that would work for their son’s nap time. 12 noon. Some photographers are wincing reading that but I wasn’t worried. I knew I could shoot in the woods and the colorful leaves would diffuse the light just perfectly.

The day of I pulled into the town of Cherokee and went hunting for a place to shoot… I was terrified to find that there were hardly any leaves on the trees (thanks to a hurricane that had recently passed through). I don’t feel like I’m known for my sun flooded images (I’m usually drawn to moody black and whites), but there was nothing I could do. Seeing Megan after all of these years was so special and melted away my trepidation. To see her as a mother was doubly special. I knew that my goal that day was to show Megan the beauty that is often shrouded in the darkness that comes with having bipolar disorder and the sun was out in full force to do it.

I couldn’t believe how lovely the high noon lighting was to shoot. Their precious family was illuminated and the beauty of them at this exact stage was sparkling. I loved the bottle feeding shots we got halfway through (their feeding journey was not an easy one) and the tender snuggling with each parent. In the end the images are full to bursting with the lovely reminder of what is beautiful in her life and the radiance shining from her just as she is.

I’m so glad that my job isn’t just pretty pictures.