The Doers

[BROOKLYN] It’s no secret that I love what I do, I feel like I gush about it in every feature I post. But I feel it’s important to share that documenting your life genuinely interests me. I’m not the kind of person who could do what I do if I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it. I would just do something else. For real. I really love capturing these special moments, seeing these kids grow and catching up with mom and dad year after year. I actually get a little sad when I photograph and family and they move away… But recently it occurred to me that our journey together doesn’t really have to end there.

I shot these twins as newborns when they lived in LA. Shortly after our shoot, they moved out to NY and it didn’t really affect me until I realized their first birthday was coming up. It made me sad to think someone else might be shooting this milestone. I get so emotionally invested in the people I work with. And I knew the family didn’t really want to hire someone else… And truthfully, I didn’t WANT them to hire someone else. So we made it happen.

We met on the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise. I had never been there, but sunrise is usually pretty dead anywhere you go in my experience, so I wasn’t sweating it. Well, the uber drops me off, it’s literally 6:45AM on a Sunday, and no joke, there were probably 30-40 people on that bridge. My first thought was “DAMN IT! How am I going to shoot around THIS?!”… There were joggers, and tourists, and fashion photographers with models fully made up, there were a handful of dancers being photographed doing all sorts of amazing moves. And, in watching everyone do their thing while I waited for my subjects to arrive, I was suddenly overwhelmed with inspiration. How amazing to be surrounded by all these people going after it. Living their dream, chasing their passion and getting out of bed before the sun to do so. It was awesome, a moment I will never forget and actually hope to experience more.

So, CHEERS to Brooklyn and all the doers. Here are some faves from our sunrise session. And, wishing a very happy 1st birthday to two of my favorite twins around. Thank you for having me and I hope to see you all again next year.