One-of-a Kind Morning

There is a reason why official family portraits are becoming more of a rarity, and it ranks up there with hosting formal dinner parties for forty! But when it happens, we know that heaven and earth have been moved to make it so…especially in this day and age where activities supersede tradition.

While candid photography creates better than ever records, digital has supplanted  paper and pictures rarely find their way into frames. Photo albums and scrapbooks have melded into custom printed books. But it’s about the experience of  making of our family portrait that I wish to share today.

It started with a brilliant idea of portraits for Mother’s & Father’s Day gifts from my daughters and a confluence of circumstances that set the scene. We had planned a  fun-filled family week  came together in Sedona, AZ in June. So, why not wrangle ourselves away from off-road jeeping and a box of  Sedonuts for breakfast to capture our family (as we truly are) at our best… together? Now I admit that time is not on my side for portraiture! But I decided that I look better now than I will in years to come… reconciliation of age and image accomplished (for the moment anyway!)

So my daughters researched and arranged the photo shoot with Tangled Lilac Photography  for early morning along Oak Creek, north of Sedona in Oak Creek Canyon. So, when the morning came we rolled out of bed, ‘gussied up,’ piled into cars and made the drive up the creek. (Including our 18 month-old grand daughter who was coping with time zone changes)

The magic began before 8 am amidst the giant boulders and cottonwood trees, with dappled light raining gently down the mountainside. The fragrance of mountain morning blended with river sounds as we grouped and regrouped into various configurations. It was magic to honor each relationship in that way…. to savor being together in a moment captured in such beauty together.

Needless to say, we came away with more than some fantastic images which are being processed into a lovely photo book. A single group portrait is just not enough, when one can have printed copies of them all! The book will be for posterity, saving memories of that magical morning in the mountains and our week together among the Red Rocks.

Thank you Tangled Lilac Photography for your amazing work. Thanks to our sons-in-law (Brian and Andrew) for making our daughters so happy. Thank you, wee Maggie, for your patience during the shoot.  And THANK YOU Katie & Alice May, for the gift of these memories!