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12. The year I shot these beautiful girls was when I learned to “pose” kids. Not overly pose them, but put them into positions that were more engaged, more connected. As my business ages, so do my clients, and as kids grow, they can actually respond to what I ask them to do. So I have to ask them to do things that make sense, that are accurate to who they are.

But that’s not what this is about. This shoot was compelled because their mother, in the last trimester of pregnancy with their little sister, was diagnosed with stage four cancer. This shoot was an hour long prayer. It was near silent, it was soft, it was meditative, it was connected. All four growing beings were consumed with acute awareness of the weighted unknown of their near futures. The baby, was, well, a cherub. Still connected to both worlds, slipping with time closer to this one.

This shoot, the tears in my eyes as I trained my lens on Mom as she watched her growing girls play, as she gazed at her newborn, on Dad as he watched her, this shoot will never fade. I can feel it as if it were yesterday.

Miracles upon miracles, Katie contacted me last year and asked me to do another shoot. Years had past. The newborn is now a fire-ball of spirit at 6 years old, and Katie has beaten all odds. She undoubtedly walked between those worlds in that massive struggle, but is solidly in this one now.