Laura Winslow Photography {phoenix's modern photographer}

“The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps–we must step up the stairs.”

~vance havner

Have you ever laughed so hard you cried? This little man did {see below}, and I have to say it still makes me giggle just thinking about it! I have had the absolute pleasure of photographing this wonderful family since his arrival two years ago, and I adore them!  Sweet man simply overflows with personality, energy and laughter and it endears anyone to him instantly.

Sessions with two year olds are often overwhelming for parents, but they are exactly what I love about photography.  Yes, there is running.  Yes, there sometimes are tears of frustration when mom and dad want to go one way but the little sweetie has different ideas.  Yes, there is climbing.  Yes, there is exploring.  Often, there are animal sounds and searching for giraffes (or hey, maybe that’s just my sessions!).  Aren’t all of these things the exact things that are so fleeting in childhood, the very things that make you laugh and that you somehow even in the moment know that you will SO.MISS someday?

Your children can LOVE to do something so very much and would do it all day, everyday if you let them…then suddenly their obsession can disappear, making way for a new interest and milestone.  You wonder why you never got around to documenting them happily sitting in the rocks, dirt everywhere and in hog heaven, or why you never recorded that adorable way your little girl said that word wrong…until one day, you realize with a start that she says it the right way or that rocks are no longer “cool” in his world.  Wistfulness ensues, yet such is the road map of the American life these days. Busyness, the inability to grab hold of time and slow it down, if even for a moment.  Yet, if you allow it, photography can DO THAT.

Photographs can be your mind’s eye, remembering the little things that are all too often forgotten in the midst of the big moments like lost teeth, bike riding or posed smiles.  When I look at the photographs that I have of my own children, the ones that draw me in each time are the ones that reveal THEM.  Not the posed ones, but the ones where I can look at their pensive stare and remember exactly what they were thinking, or the way their nose would scrunch up when they cried, or the photograph that shows my son’s stubborn-but-got-it-from-me-nature, or my daughter’s shy smile.  I will more easily recollect the wide grins, the forced smiles…but will I remember the way they always were?  The sheer REALITY of life?  Embrace the raw and real beauty of how a photographer can capture your children. Don’t expect them to always sit still, pose for the camera or stay perfectly clean for your session. You don’t expect that out of life, do you?

Instead, I welcome the incredible loveliness of childhood during a session, like the way that this little guy’s latest love is climbing stairs…and we somehow chose a location with stairs seemingly at every turn.  He loved every little part of all those stairs (last year the rocks were his thing, but I didn’t notice him pick up a single rock during our session this year, proof of how childhood pleasures quickly pass), and I enjoyed following him, discovering and exploring through the eyes of a child…

xoxo,

laura