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personal :: my own family (by Suzanne Gipson Photography)

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This is a long post featuring a lot of photos I didn't take. This is my own family, photographed in the way that I strive to photograph others. It's a visual record of this season of life in our home, with all the quirks that that entails. 

Hiring Suzanne Gipson to do these photos was honestly one of the best financial investments we have made this year. Why? Because these photos hold up a mirror to me, showing me with fresh eyes what is always there but which I sometimes lose sight of: all the goodness of God to our family, the gifts He's given us, the redeeming and renewing work He is doing in each of us individually and relationally. We aren't perfect. Gosh, in some ways this year has been one of the more stretching ones, with lots of hard conversations and interactions. But when I see these photos I see that the hard stuff isn't the whole story. These photos create a fresh wave of gratitude in me for the people that I'm living this life with, whom I call my family. 

If I can do something like this for my clients, I will have succeeded. It's what I pray for before every session, guys. It's what drives me as a photographer. 

on preparing for a family photojournalism session

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yesterday our family was photographed by the talented suzanne gipson. she came and did a storytelling session in our home, photographing us as we went about all the usual sorts of activities: waking up from naps, drawing, playing trains, sitting on the front porch drinking lemonade, prepping dinner, tickling and wrestling on the bed, etc. etc. it was a session a lot like what i do for others, with one of the primary goals  being to keep things real and to create a snapshot of life as it is for our family in this particular season of life in our own context. 

when i do these sessions for others, i hope that they'll be able to relax and trust. i hope that they won't feel the need to get new clothes, and i certainly don't want them to coordinate the wardrobe amongst the entire family. i hope they'll leave some of their messes visible and not compulsively clean up all evidence that a real, living and breathing family lives in their home. i hope that they will somehow supernaturally be able to trust that not only will i not be put off by their imperfections but that i will also actually LOVE them; that i will be even more endeared to them for having been allowed to see and include their messes and their grown-out haircuts and their stained t-shirts. from where i stand -- which is behind the camera -- i am more than comfortable with their human-ness. 

so it was a little surprising to find in myself a compulsive desire to tidy up our house, to hide the objects that i don't really like, to get my son's hair cut, and to choose clothes carefully. confession: i actually even went to a resale store and bought "new" outfits for the kids. confession: hazel and gus both had haircuts the day of. confession: tim and i have been konmarie-ing the heck out of our house for weeks. confession: i put on some very light make-up (whereas usually i wear none). 

i was feeling a little embaressed about this. it was as if i couldn't practice what i was preaching to all my clients. i myself was having difficulty trusting that Suzanne could and would see beauty and make magic out of all our raw material.

but now i see that all these things -- the tidying/discarding, the haircuts, and the buying of some fall clothes -- needed doing anyway, and would have been done eventually. yet, we definitely were fueled toward getting them done quickly, with the due date being the date of our sessions. and maybe that's not all bad. as for the make-up... well, i'm justifying that one by saying it will make my face "pop" a bit more on film. ;)

here's the important thing: the way our family and our house looked the day Suzanne came to photograph us was not formed to match some idealized Pinterest board. the clothes and the haircuts were all characteristic of the style we tend toward and lifestyle that we live; they were not inauthentic.

a (raw, unedited) screen shot Suzanne sent me of one very real family moment from our session : the one in which Gus laid on top of Walt's head, while Hazel drove a train over his back. that's my arm in the top right, sweeping in to pull Gus off his…

a (raw, unedited) screen shot Suzanne sent me of one very real family moment from our session : the one in which Gus laid on top of Walt's head, while Hazel drove a train over his back. that's my arm in the top right, sweeping in to pull Gus off his brother's face lest he suffocate him. 

so maybe that's the main thing: to somehow stand determined to be who you really are as a family, even if that presentation is a TOUCH more put-together than it normally is. for if we try to become something other than what we are, we aren't really capturing family history at all, are we? the moment we try to conform ourselves to an idealized vision of Happy Family, that's the moment we start losing ground in the goal to record our family history, and to hold in a collection of images the unique and perfectly imperfect chaos of our real life.

i still sorta wish i had left a few more messes around for suzanne. and if i had it to do over, i might have skipped the make-up.

 

personal :: a visit to two sparrows farm

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it was such a happy day when i got a birth photography inquiry from whitney, because i could tell she was a like-minded mama with a beautiful spirit... AND she and her husband are dairy farmers. we ended up doing a partial barter of services/products, and that is how i got hooked on their high-quality and uber-delicious raw milk. 

i had my own baby just a few weeks after their beau was born. so both of us have been preoccupied with feeding and growing our tiny new sons. but with the arrival of the warmer weather, i knew i wanted to prioritize going out to see the farm from which all this amazing milk (and eggs and chickens!) was coming from. besides that, little cece and hazel had gotten along so well when we met at my house for her birth photography interview, and they'd been asking about one another since then. 

whitney and dan are SO open about their farming practices. it's very inspiring how thoughtful, honest, earth-kind, and animal-friendly it is. they welcome people often: "come see!," they say, and they mean it. there's nothing to hide. 

we had such a lovely morning with them, and we probably stayed too long, but it was just so hard to pull our city-dwelling selves away from that serene and fresh-aired place, and the company of this wonderful family. 

you'll notice my gus is pants-free in these photos. free range kids right here. and the part where gus is crying? the caption should say, "it so noisy!"

by the way, stay tuned for more of this place and this family, because they have a family photojournalism session on the books. i can't wait to get out there again to officially photograph them! 

one more note and heads up: my session prices will be increasing a bit on july 1st, so if you've been on the fence about booking a session or making me "your" photographer, now would be a good time to make something official. :) 

on mother's day

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In this work I do, I get to see and photograph a LOT of mamas. Mamas at the moment they become mamas, as they pull their babies up to their chests and cry happy tears over them. Mamas who are welcoming their 2nd (or 3rd or 6th) baby into their families, and thereby growing their mothering heart exponentially...again. Mothers nourishing their babes at their breasts, then nourishing their children at their kitchen table with lovingly prepared meals. Mothers comforting, holding, kissing, singing, scolding, teaching, tickling, correcting, carrying, playing, and laughing. Mothers at home in their own spaces that they've created to be soft landing places for their families. 

I SEE you, mothers. I see you because I am one of you. And when I come photograph you, I do it because I want to show you -- through my limited by loving and artistic perspective -- that you are a million good things: you are faithful, steady, sacrificial, blessed, of value, loved and loving. From the moment you get a positive pregnancy test and through every moment that follows.

So Mother's Day this year meant a lot to me as a photographer this year, just as it meant a lot to me personally as a mother who recently birthed her third baby. 

I put together a couple collages to celebrate. Since I didn't have unlimited time, I just made them to wish a happy FIRST mother's day to those mamas I've photographed this past year who just became moms for the first time. But if i'd had more time, there would have been collages of all the Milk Time mamas with their little ones, and all the mamas of 2+ kids in their family photojournalism sessions, and the mamas whose births were for their 2nd+ child. 

If you haven't already, please consider letting me -- or another gifted photographer you admire! -- come by with my camera to "see" you in this way. You will never regret it, not ever. I love the movement going on to #getmominthesquare and similar. I want to get you - the mama, who is usually behind the camera -- into the visual history of your family in an authentic way. So get in touch. 

I'm also going to be launching a new "deal" toward that end soon. Stay tuned.

To end, here are a few photo collages I made to celebrate my own motherhood this mother's day. These three bring so much goodness. My cup runs over. 

Happy Mother's Day... every day!

Love, 

Brooke

personal :: a snow day

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i took one look out the window this morning and declared it a snow day. which meant we would not even try to go anywhere today, we would stay in our jammies as long as we wanted (or, if not jammies, then our snuggliest clothes), and we would do special things like make hot chocolate and eat a pot roast for dinner. 

one thing i love about this house we now call home is the light in the winter months. it's brighter in here during the months when all the many trees that crowd our home on every side have lost their leaves, letting the dim bluish light of winter come unhindered through every window. 

and yesterday i got a new lens in the mail. the lens i have been dreaming of owning for such a long time, but which i haven't allowed myself to "splurge" on. really, though, it's a business expense, and this 35 mm f/1.4 lens will serve me SO well at births and in dimmer, in-home family photojournalism sessions. 

so between the beautifully-lit snow day spirit, and the acquisition of this new lens, i felt inspired to photograph my personal life for the first time in a long time. it's been a busy season of shooting for others, and that's left me little energy for telling the stories unfolding under my own roof. so today -- when it felt like joyful inspiration instead of duty -- i acted without delay and set about to shooting a sort of Day In The Life. however -- it should be noted -- i didn't start until after breakfast, because the idea didn't come to me immediately. :)

this snow day also contains guest appearances from our interns and boiler room community, whom came over from across the alley to help shovel this morning, and then again this afternoon for popcorn and tea. 

though you won't see ME in any of these images, you should know that i am the one behind the scenes who prepares meals, who snuggles and plays with my little ones, who tidies up the messes as they unfold, who watches through windows as this kids play in the yard, who changes diapers and clothing, and whose heart swells a million times a day with incredible love for this family i've been given. 

come join us for our snow day!

details i love and want to remember: hazel cutting up random things (in this case, the packing materials from my lens shipment), gus eating crayons, gus' cheesy grin that he's suddenly started flashing at the camera from time to time, hazel's deep delight in getting outside in all weather (and her new pink shovel that she used three times today to do "digging"), gus's obsession with stranding between the twin sinks upstairs and turning on the faucets of both simultaneously, hazel learning to draw shapes, how all the men in our community are bearded, the frequency of crockpot meals and fried eggs in this house, the laundry baskets that show up in the background of almost every scene, late-day meltdowns from the littles, and the inventive "office" set-up tim has created for himself in the living room. 

all is a gift.