Oh Baby, Baby!

Look I told you, it has been an entire year of baby season for friends. Personally, it’s fun to meet everyone’s littles. I’m all for shooting photos with kids. It’s rewarding to give someone photos that they will have their entire lives.  

Backtrack to this shoot last summer. It had been a while since I’d shot photos with Kimi (she had recently had a baby and was a bit busy) and we coordinated a shoot working in brands she’s sponsored by: Patagonia, Olukai, Costa, and Keep Wild. We incorporated Buddy and her husband Justin as much as possible.

The shoot started on her front steps, Kimi was surrounded by an assortment of Olukai shoes and she was painting a sign to put up by the door. I shot various angles during the process and then halfheartedly kept trying to read what she was writing. Hand on my heart I took Latin in high school (although we watched Gladiator a lot) and I’m a freaking reader. I had a full-frontal blonde moment (my hair is dark brown). I couldn’t read the sign, it said, “Please leave ego and shoes here.” Ego was tripping me up, I kept going, “What the hell does she mean? Eggo – like waffles, she needs another g in that. Who brings eggos?” Then when I figured it out I said out loud, “Oh! Ego! You mean ego, ohhh!” I’m 95% sure I explained it to Kimi or I kept it to my special self, I can’t remember.

Anyway, after finishing at the front of the house we migrated to the back and shot with Buddy attached to Kimi. This wasn’t all smooth sailing and it wasn’t expected to be. I was fully prepared to stop shooting if he started crying, start again when he stopped, and then cut shooting if he cried more. For the most part, he was a trooper, a solid child laborer. Kimi kept him entertained too and we finished the morning doing fish prep shots on a new drying rack that Andre Fajardo built. Also, shooting with a small person and trying to maneuver for photos is no small ask and Kimi handled it deftly.

Kimi also wanted to get photos with her, Justin, and Buddy in the water. We planned to meet late that afternoon before the sunset and shoot in the shallows and on the beach. Justin and Kimi did a fantastic job at keeping Buddy laughing and engaged. With how I shoot, I feel like I have a tendency to take a ton of photos to be sure I don’t miss a split second of everyone having a good expression on their faces and with that also capture the often hilarious “misery” shots (like Buddy’s face coming up from a dunk).

I need a conclusion here because it’s Thursday and I pre-staged this blog without writing one. Frankly, you’re not getting one. We’re visiting my husband’s family, his Grandma is in the kitchen, and she’s in a talking mood. I’m headed to coffee, talking about her life story, and dance-cleaning. 

You don’t need a Funking Stork!

Dear Reader, that catchy closing line is under construction as if you had a stork that funked you’d have a stork baby and not a person baby or it may endure the test of time, stay tuned, dun, dun, dun