we come in peace
I have been photographing Castaneda family for about three years now. Courtney always signed up for a studio or outdoor session. So when I started offering in-home mini sessions last Fall, she booked one, and I showed up to her house for the very first time.
After I walking through the front door I immediately thought: THIS IS THE PLACE
Her home is something else. Every wall, every shelf, every corner has something going on. Art everywhere, and not the kind you grab off a shelf at HomeGoods. We are talking the kind of pieces you find when you are really looking, at a flea market on a good day, at an estate sale where you stumble onto something that was clearly meant for you. Everything in that house had a story, and somehow, impossibly, it all worked together. I genuinely do not know how she pulled it off, but it was cohesive in the most effortlessly cool way. As a photographer, I felt like a kid in a candy store.
But honestly, the house was secondary to the family inside it.
Courtney and her husband Bernardo are the kind of people who put their whole heart into everything they do. If you are in the Lakewood area of Dallas, you may already know them because they run a local kids play gym that I genuinely love taking my own kids to. It is the kind of place that just gets it. High energy kids are welcome there, celebrated even, and parents get to breathe for a minute while their kids do exactly what kids are supposed to do. Courtney and Bernardo have built something really special over there, and the way they run that space tells you everything you need to know about who they are as people. If you haven’t been there you’re missing out.
So when I say this family rolls with it, I mean it in the deepest possible way. They have two boys with energy levels that I can only describe as fully and completely alive at all times. Every session with this family is fast moving and a little chaotic and I mean that as the highest possible compliment. The chaos is the good stuff. It is where the real personality lives. Some of my favorite photographs I have ever taken have come from this family because they are never performing for the camera. They are just being themselves, and being themselves happens to be a really great time.
Halfway through the session, the boys decided it was costume time. Which, yes, obviously.
Then I spotted this incredible piece of artwork on the wall that said "we come in peace," and the boys had these giant Nerf sword toys, and I just had to put them in front of it. That photo makes me so happy every single time I look at it.
The whole evening was relaxed and unhurried. We moved through different rooms, followed the light, let the boys lead us where they wanted to go.
This is exactly what an in home family session should be. Your family just needs to be willing to let it happen.
IN HOME SESSIONS ARE GOLD.
If you’ve ever thought your house was not nice enough or big enough or complete enough for photos, I want to gently push back.
A home that’s been lived in — with real art on the walls and toys on the floor and a kitchen that gets used — THAT is a home worth documenting.
I OFFER IN HOME FAMILY SESSIONS IN DALLAS AND THROUGHOUT THE DFW AREA, INCLUDING LAKEWOOD, RICHARDSON, OAK CLIFF, AND PLANO. IF YOU WANT PHOTOS THAT CAPTURE YOUR ACTUAL LIFE, I WOULD LOVE TO COME OVER. REACH OUT HERE
