Breaking Past Selfies for the McCullough Whitcomb Family

When you have kids, sometimes it’s hard to bust out of the selfie streak to capture photos of our children. It’s easy to grab a smartphone and snap away. There’s nothing bad with that at all! One downside, however, is that it’s hard to get the whole family in one shot. Not to mention, it’s hard to replicate the clarity of professional shots. For first-time clients, Meredith and Jamie, with their two boys Jack and Ben, this was why they reached out.

How We Met

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to photograph the oldest son, Jack, during a Miss Amy’s Music Makers – Music Together class. The teacher of the class, Silvia, was moving to France and was planning to start her own Music together program there. Before she left, she asked me to take some photos of her to use for future marketing purposes.

Jack was one of the children in the class. His mom, Meredith, loved the photos I’d taken of him then. Which was why she decided to get in touch to have family photos taken.

When getting in touch, Meredith even wrote to me: “Now that we have two kids, we are looking to capture this moment in time between the two boys and us as the family that we are now. We never took any professional photos when Jack was younger and we don’t have any family photos other than a handful of family selfies. The boys are also starting to interact and it would be fun to capture these early moments.”

The Session

We had a string of days with bad weather right before we got together. So on the day of the session, we were pleasantly surprised when we lucked out with beautiful weather. I arrived at their family home in Petworth, and was thrilled to find ample locations for us to use in the photos. I captured great images in their front and back yards, in addition to their back alleyway. We also took advantage of the brick pedestal on their front porch as a fun place for Jack to sit (as you can see in the photos below). It kept him in one place long enough to capture some great images of him alone, with his parents, and with the whole family together. I also enjoyed photographing each of the boys in their respective bedrooms. As they get older, the images will surely hold special memories for them (and of course, their parents!).

The Selection

We’ve planned some beautiful framed prints for the family’s main hallway, as well as an album and New Year’s cards. We’re also planning to do some fun custom prints for the boys’ bedrooms, which include the first initial for each boy.