I ventured into this whole photography thing in the first place to document family. When Natalie asked me to schedule a Fayetteville TN family photography session to document Dru’s 1st birthday, I was thrilled. Long before I knew how to shoot in manual or owned a good lenses, I was the aunt taking all the pictures at family gatherings. Really, starting a photography business should have caught no one off guard.
My Chattanooga-based family failed to witness nearly as much of Dru’s first year as we wanted. I shot his newborn pictures (sweating behind an N95). Covid, my own pregnancy, and conflicting schedules kept us away more than hoped. From what I’ve seen, Dru is such a chill, big guy. We came into town to celebrate his birthday. I saw him partying hard: enjoying the bubbles, opening presents, eating a smash cake. A little later, I looked over and found him passed out asleep, laying on top of one of Bond’s co-workers/friends on the swing. You can’t push off naptime forever, even when it’s your birthday!
Our photo session proved to be a whole adventure of its own. We drove to Fayetteville Friday night, arriving just in time to catch the Saharan dust sunset at the farm of Ben and Bond’s Nana and Pop. We arrived first, so I woke up my baby and fed her before the photos. This resulted in a bit of a diaper explosion (onto me) that I dealt with as the others arrived. Ben’s dad brought the key to the farm’s gate, so I quickly scouted for a location with everyone in tow. I found a perfect spot: a nice fence for leading lines, trees to provide some shade, plenty of negative space. As I metered the light and the cows promptly found us and swarmed our car. Cow slobber and flies went everywhere. We quickly evacuated to Location B, which did the trick.
While I snapped some photos with the Hatchers, my children ate pizza in the back of their grandfather Catfish’s truck and spent time with their grandparents, great-grandmother, and great Uncle Bill. Sweet Dru stayed up way past his bedtime and found himself out in the middle of a farm with crazy people who were trying to get him to smile after being attacked by cows. He really participated quite well considering the circumstances. There was a lot of swinging, flying and tickling involved. Observing our session, Uncle Bill said, “Why do they keep throwing that poor baby around?” Whatever gets that smile, right?
Here are some of my favorites from this Fayetteville TN Family photography session. For more information about photo sessions with me, click here.