craving connection

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.

april | sacred roots

The dream of my life

is to lie down by a slow river

And stare at the light in the trees-

To learn something by being nothing

-Mary Oliver

One fall day in the dreamy fog, I met April by my favorite tree, by my favorite river. April is a fellow artist and photographer and to have her come to me for sacred roots pictures was such a thrill. When I asked her more about why she was wanting them done now she simply said “I want them for my boys to see their mama IN the lens, but mostly it is incredibly freeing and a huge act of self love to do photos just of me and for me.”

When I started with sacred roots sessions, many years ago, I wanted it to be about so much more than the pictures. I wanted it to be about the experience. The cold water on your feet and the dirt in your hair. The way it felt to be really you in a moment (not mama, not wife, not your career). Just you. I wanted the moments to be sacred and soul filling.

My time with April was soul filling to me. She wove a wreathe of goldenrod and read aloud to me from her beloved Mary Oliver book. The tender words blending with the river to produce the sweetest song. She ventured into the freezing water and leaned into the roots of the trees that towered above. It was truly sacred.

I love the images we captured together. I’m usually a black and white gal but I can't resist the color in this series. I can see April one day, gathered with her children and grandchildren around her album, lovingly touching the images of youth and wonder, with choruses of “yep that’s our mama alright.”

sacred roots.