Let’s back it up about 5.5 years. I am not yet a Mom [well, like 8 weeks pregnant with Christofer], but I have a “really nice camera” and a brand spankin’ new copy of Photoshop Elements. I tell people that I am a photographer and that I love taking pictures. It’s almost painful for me to go on with the story, but I am not shy about my beginnings. I volunteer to take maternity pictures for my friend Jen and her friend Ravi [I should really use my laptop camera to photograph the pained expression that is on my face as I type these words]. Let me be totally clear when I say my subjects were beautiful and so it’s not about that. It was about me setting up some sort of rigged getup with curtains, a lamp (for backlighting) and an on-camera pop up flash and shooting on auto mode. Then it was about me jacking it up in Elements. Not because I had to “fix” my work, because I knew so little that I thought wonking the daylights out of everything actually made it look cool. It’s a memory I suppressed. Completely.
Flash forward to about 12-18 months ago. Beautiful Ravi and her lovely family move right down the street from me. Still, the memory was too deep to recall. One evening I am teaching a workshop and looking around at my past clients (including Ravi) and a wave of embarrassment hits as I realize that the EXACT people I am poking fun of (people that go into business too soon or shoot sessions before they know what the fork they are doing)… well that “people” was me and like a movie, a movie of all my early sessions (oh, there were a few, you know who you are) start flashing before my eyes. I am sure I was inexplicably bright red. I also know that I am not alone, and that every photographer has a session or two hidden in their closet or under their bed that they thought was THE bomb and now realize it was A bomb.
Flash forward again to about 2 weeks ago. Ravi brought her gorgeous kiddos (and lovely mom) to the studio for a quick little newborn mini session [newborn sessions typically aren't mini sessions, but I'll shoot them that way if you are looking for sibling shots and a few quickies for a birth announcement rather than a full newborn setup]. I really feel like it was my time to redeem myself and make good on all those earlier images.
I really love Ravi. She might be one of the nicest people I know. I am not kidding. She is just genuinely REALLY REALLY nice. Her children are gorgeous and I am so happy she’s a member of our community and it’s so nice to see her face around town. I haven’t seen her husband since they moved here, but he’s good with me because he is of my people [this is where I start to channel my mom and talk about the villages even though I have never been to the villages and cannot speak a word of Greek. Unless I've had a lot of Ouzo. And I am in Santorini trying to communicate with a waiter.].
And so here they are! Ravi, we can set up a time for you to come by and see them all!
beautiful family … great pics.