welcoming lawton | the ledford family

The Ledford family loves babies and that’s a good thing since last year they brought home baby number seven. Seven of the most filled up with love children I’ve ever met. I’ve been honored to be at 3 of these babies’ births but this last one came during covid restrictions and truly wouldn’t have waited for me to make the trip down the mountain anyhow.

Instead, I got to be there right when they arrived home to the breathless crowd of siblings and I just love the movement in the pictures I managed to get. Such love, such tenderness!

I also got to do an in home newborn session with them of which I will post in a separate blog. For now, enjoy these precious photos of one of the most delighted in baby that ever lived.

Welcome Lawton!

abrianna | sacred roots

I remember the balmy day that I met Abrianna. I was feeling dry creatively for the past few months and was excited to get my feet wet, both figuratively and literally. These sacred roots sessions just cannot be planned out, they tend to unfold as we go along and it is the most truly magical experience. This was surely the case that day.

I waded in the cool waters, my clothes swirling around my knees. I sat in the earth smelling of rain and climbed up the majestic roots that beckoned me to inhale the tree that towered overhead. My art flowed out of me like the river itself.

Abrianna is much younger than I am but her ability to just sit with herself and just be was like that of a woman who had lived a full life already. Every shot I took I was just gasping at her beauty and at the confidence blooming from her core.

I was so impressed that a woman at the cusp of such change in her life would make it a priority to make having these pictures taken of her a reality. I know she will look back on these for all her days and I hope she will see what I see. A timeless beauty that is deeply rooted.

gathering | the high desert, ca

This fall, I found myself thousands of miles away from my home in the high desert of California. A dear friend lived there with her family and I was planning to do a session with her family of 5.5. Last minute she decided she wanted to get pictures of her extended family too.

It was a hustle and bustle of getting ready, trading outfits, making food and I was there for it. I sat like the eye of a hurricane and just observed the way they all interacted: spicy, all in, and full of love for one another.

I was a little nervous about the lighting situation. I wasn’t used to it and the sun falls fast in that gold hour. Once the gold was starting I just started shooting away at all the impish faces running around, the baby toes and the proud big brother smiles. I did not stop till the sun went down and had to wait a week to get home to look at them. I really didn’t even know if I had captured it

Oh what magic simply gathering together was. So much richness, it was overwhelming. 4 generations of women, primas and primos with their best friends, a legacy. Photographing across generations is something sacred and deeply moving to me.

Thank you Caldera family for effortlessly sliding in and out of the frame and making magic with me that evening.