olson {family}

"You know my mom?" one of the littles said to me.  She held my hand as we walked across the grass. 

"Yep.  For a long time," I answered.  I didn't tell her about the time her mom and I almost got kicked out of a courtroom for laughing too loud and being disruptive.  I didn't tell her about the scandalous things she wrote in my yearbook.  I didn't tell her about jumping out of the window of ninth grade English when the teacher wasn't looking.  Maybe she'll hear these things one day.   

What I did tell her is that her mom is amazing.  And looks really grown up in her beautiful dress.  (But I know that secretly she really wanted to run through the marble halls just to hear her heels echo.)

   

   

   

lis {portrait photography}

I wasn't going to share these, but then decided I loved them too much not to.  I told her, "it's fun editing photographs of your best friend because I know all the expressions and which ones are authentically you," and it's true.  Aren't I lucky to have such a beautiful best friend?  Good thing I'm waaay beyond the whole teenage jealousy phase.

We shot outside for, oh, maybe three minutes.  It was coooold!  And her little boy was crying through the sliding glass doors, which was heartbreaking and also a little funny.  Also heartbreaking was that my lens died just as we were about to begin.  Agh!  So I had to dust off my 18-55 mm kit lens (the only other one I had at the time), and felt grateful that this wasn't a paying session!  We did the remainder inside her house, which turned out to be perfect because the last photo of her surrounded by her books?  That's the authentic Lis.

jess + spencer

I've known Jess since she was twelve and pining over a boy we'll call John.  Lucky for her, she found Spencer.  Lucky for him, too.  And now she's a [very good] mama.  It was so fun hanging out for these few hours--it needs to happen more!