Traditions Documentary Session
The holidays are upon us and that means time for family traditions!
Moms, you are always behind the camera taking photos of your kids building their gingerbread house, decorating the tree, or putting the sprinkles on the cookies. I want you to get in the frame with your kids too! You only have this short period of time when they are little, why not capture these memories? Or maybe one of your traditions is getting lots of family together to do holiday baking, rolling lefse, or building snowmen? A Traditions Documentary session would record these memories for you to always look back on.
These sessions are unposed, documentary, and storytelling. They will capture the laughs and giggles and freeze this moment in time.
I will come to you and be a fly on the wall while I photograph these memories.
What's your tradition??
To book, click below:
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I hope these pictures give you all the feels like they do for me! The colors, tones, dramatic black and whites, and the emotions of the images put this at the top of the list of my favorite session of the year. Moody photography is my muse!
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The Olson's farm was started in 1945 by Irving Olson. It has now grown to 4000 acres that Irving's son, Jerry, took over along with two of his sons, Matt and Mike. Matt and his wife Alisha started farming in 2008 and they both have degrees from NDSU. Their 3 children are the 4th generation on the farm and they accompany their parents in the field when it's the busiest times of the year. I hope these photos show you a little behind the scenes of the family farm life!
Be sure to hover over the photos as some of them have captions :)
Figuring out the arrangements of who is going where.
This is how they keep Kaleb contained in the tractor :)
Kaleb helping mom drive the grain cart.
Kaleb has the best seat in the house, right on his mom's lap.
Waiting for the truck to get filled up.
Waiting in the sleeper cab for the truck to fill up.
From the field into the truck, from the truck into the bin.
Sometimes things go wrong. They also always go wrong at the worst times.
Farming is a lot more high tech than it was in 1945.
I rode a round with Jerry in the combine. He told me this was "The ugliest 200 bushel corn he's ever seen."
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There was a 20% chance of rain during our scheduled session time, but clouds were building up on the radar. As I drove to the T Family's home, I watched the sky grow darker and darker. As soon as I stepped inside their front door, it started to rain. Ugh. It didn't look like it would rain long, so we got some photos inside their gorgeous home. Dad kept an eye out for it to let up, and when it did we ran outside as fast as we could. Of course, more rain was building up and was on it's way! We had about 20 minutes before it started sprinkling again, but everyone was a trooper and we got them done! I had packed my umbrellas just in case, and I'm glad I did because those shots are my favorites!
Thunderstorm sessions are now up there with golden hour as my favorite time to shoot :)
(You will have to excuse the quality, I haven't quite figured out yet the correct dimensions for my blog...)
Some day there won't be little legs sticking out from behind the wall when I walk past the bathroom.
Cup #1
Sophia trying to be a "gamer".
Off to preschool!
One of the last times I will walk down to the preschool room. I've had a child in preschool for the past 6 years and it will be so strange to not be driving to town every Tuesday and Thursday!
North Dakota traffic jam, stuck going 10mph behind a tractor.
I went up to our farm shop to work on my bathtub restoration project (I can't wait to use it for sessions!!). My husband's planter had a major break down so it was in the shop getting fixed. When it's planting season, this is such a stressful thing to have happen!
Laundry is never ending!
Do they even get any toothpaste in their mouths?!?!
Cup #2
The ladies patiently waiting to be let outside. Chickens are such a funny animal! If you've never had a farm fresh egg before, you are missing out! We eat a lot of eggs around here. A LOT.
Back to town to pick up Sophia from preschool, then off to Fargo for gymnastics. This is my road to town, you couldn't pay me enough to live in a big city!
These next 3 photos tear at my heart. My baby was on the Acro Micro team this past year and it was so much fun! She LOVED every minute of it and learned so much. She won't be able to continue though, next year our schedules just won't work out to get her there the 2 days a week they have practice. She is heartbroken, I'm heartbroken, and we've had many tears over this decision. It's incredibly hard to tell your child that they can no longer do something they are so passionate about. Yesterday was her last day and I had to do all I could to keep from losing it as we walked out. I will be sad to take the parking pass sticker out of my window. I'm hoping we can find a rec class that works for us and her so she doesn't have to be completely done with gymnastics.
For those who know Scarlett know that she's very quiet and shy. At home though? She's the total opposite! She's such a goofy cornball, for lack of better words! I hope someday she decides to come out of her shell more.
My husband thinks he's a supermodel, so whenever he sees the camera out he strikes a pose.
She has become such a reader, and I love it!
Everything has it's place in Scarlett's room.
Daddy's girl.
This girl is too mature for her age and is already messy like a teenager. 9 years has gone by too fast!
I love the way the light is hitting her curls. I hope she never loses them!
After school the other day the girls and I decided to go up to an old farmstead we own to explore and have a little photo shoot. The previous owners had lots of animals and left the hay loft in the barn full of hay. The thing (I don't know the proper name) that moved the bales is still there, so the girls took turns swinging on it. In my head I had pictured these gorgeous photos with the dusty, golden light haze coming in through the windows. However, they did not turn out that way :(. It was so dark in there my camera had a horrible time trying to focus, especially while the girls were swinging. So these photos WILL be redone, I just need my husband there to help me open the large door on the other side of the barn to let in more light.
After the girls wore themselves out swinging, we explored some of the other old buildings there. They really wanted to do serious face photos!
These were shot on Portra 400, Fuji 400H, and Ektar 100 with my Yashica Mat-124. Developed and scanned by The FIND Lab.
Last night the light coming into my living room was perfect. My girls were dancing all around so I had to grab my camera. I love catching these memories of them having fun! Our day hadn't gone the best, the girls had been arguing and fighting all day. It was nice to end it on a good note.
I suppose you're wondering what this big, exciting confession is?? Sorry to burst your bubble but it's neither big nor exciting. It's sad, actually. Today was the first time we ever took our girls to Sunday rollerskating at the local auditorium. My girls had an absolute blast, and I felt bad that we had never done it before. We have certainly had good intentions of going over the years, but either forgot or were too lazy to get out of our jammies to go. We hadn't even left the building and they were already asking if we can go back again next week, so I think it was a hit with them! Oh, and I also got some great pics :)
