Tennessee Mountain Family Session | Unicoi, TN | Danielle and Family

Family sessions are usually quick to set up and quick to schedule, there are only so few times that everyone’s calendars align for such a time. But when you have a pandemic, family emergencies, and general life it suddenly can turn into a two year ordeal. So what do you do with that time? For Danielle and her family it meant a lot more opportunities to jump on calls and catch up, get to know one another, hear stories about everyday life, and it certainly didn’t hurt to have a known connection as Danielle is cousins with Dustin who you may recall from this Colorado Rockies Engagement session.

During those calls I felt like I got to know Danielle beyond what we would have had time for in a typical session timeline. We had months and months to dig into things deeper, such as raising kids ) I have two boys as well) and marriage and work, and of course how we were all finding sanity during the COVID pandemic.

By the time we came around to the world beginning to reopen and everyone being well enough to get together, we realized that we hadn’t even really talked about what the session could look like since the first call.

Danielle had originally wanted to rent a home near Asheville and maybe invite her folks to join as well. Knowing she had teenagers, and boys at that, I asked why wouldn’t she want to do this at her home. Like any parent ever, but particularly during this time, she said her home was a mess and maybe it would just be better somewhere else. I asked what it is was she wanted to capture, what was the reason for the photographs at all and she said she wanted to remember this time. Knowing full well what a mess my boys can make and what a mess my dogs make, I could completely empathize with her. I also knew that some of my favorite photos of my own kids was in the mess of it all - the mess was our everyday life…is our everyday life. If we were going to genuinely capture it as it is, the mess was going to be something she would likely come to cherish about this time in her family’s life. It was easy to look down the road and see a conversation around a photo starting with, “do you remember what our kitchen used to look like?” Those are the hooks in our memories that bring everything back - the smells, the sights, that inform the feelings and the nostalgia.

Danielle was in, but with a slight twist. She wanted to include her parents and there was no better way to do so than to go to their home. The same home she had grown up in, the same home her boys had spent numerous nights, and most important where everyone would still be comfortable.

As soon as I arrived, we sat down and just all started talking. No one wants to jump right into photos, plus this was the first time we had met in person and the first time I was meeting her entire family. We needed a rapport.

From there it felt like being with my own family. Brothers taking jabs at each other. Mom and dad enjoying a beer. Grandmother telling stories, grandfather avoiding the camera. It felt like home.

When we wrapped up, I was thanking everyone for inviting me in and was about to head back home to Asheville, when Danielle’s mom said she had planned for me to stay for dinner. So I sat down and enjoyed an amazing meal, including her famous “best chicken”. Funny how some good conversation, a two pound camera, and some genuine connection can literally open doors and pull up seats.