Mary of 8.08 Photography is a Ponte Vedra Beach Photographer located in NE Florida. Mary creates modern classic images of birth, your newborns, and the families that love them. Serving Jacksonville, Ponte Vedra, St. Augustine and surrounding NE Florida communities.
Ponte Vedra Beach Photographer
Last time I saw this wonderful family was for Keller’s newborn session.
That was 6 months ago and take a look at him now! All chub and these beautiful bright blue eyes!
I had a tough time deciding which images from this session to blog because I seriously loved every single one. I’m not gonna lie, sometimes it’s hard to gear myself up to leave my family and head out to “work” on a weekend evening. After a particularly busy day and a day where my own kids weren’t exactly showing their best selves I really just wanted to hunker down at home and let the day fade away on this particular afternoon. But out to the beach I went and what a wonderful thing it was for my spirit. I’m not sure if it was the beach, being behind the camera doing the thing I love, or just getting to spend the evening with this fun family, but I felt refreshed and renewed by the time I was heading home. I think it was a combination of all 3, but hanging with this family just made me smile. The easy and natural way they all interacted with one another, the way the kids played together, those gummy laughs that Keller saved for his daddy….all of it just made for a beautiful night.
Sometimes in dealing with the challenges of daily life and the often not so great attitudes/actions of our kids it’s so easy to forget why we started on this parenting journey. That’s what I love about photographs. We don’t usually take pictures of our kids fighting or the look of resentment on their faces when we make them do something they don’t want to do. We don’t take pictures of the giant messes they make (unless of course it’s particularly funny) or the loads of laundry they leave for us to do. Nope. We take pictures of the things we want to remember. Their gummy smiles and chubby baby legs. We take pictures of the 10 seconds the kids are actually playing nicely with each other. We want to remember the little girl dancing in the waves, the little boy who just has to have a stick in his hand, the look on our faces as we giggle with the little miracle we brought into the world. I absolutely love the role that I can play in capturing these things for my clients. I love capturing the details that parents can look at on tough days and say “These, these are the reasons we clean up the messes, break up the fights, do the laundry, make sure the homework gets done, wake up at all hours of the night….” It’s also a bit of selfishness on my part. The time I spend focusing on the beauty in other people’s families gives me the respite and the refreshment that I need to go home and focus on the beauty within my own little world.