In this here line of work I meet a lot of moms.  A shit ton really.  Most of the time, I spend time with these Moms with their kids.  It’s part of the gig of a family photographer.  Every mom I meet loves their kids and every mom I meet does it in their own way.  No one way is more right or wrong than the other.  Life can be hard, kids are hard and dammit we are all doing the very best we can.  Add trying to keep these kids on their best behaviour, in an outfit that maybe they don’t want to wear and then add the stress of a financial investment into things and boom photos become a pretty trying time.  I know, our family does it yearly and I kid you not, I seriously MUST have a strong drink before and after.

Every once in a while you meet someone special like Anna, although she is quick to tell you how life is hard and scary, she makes it look all sorts of easy and elegant and shit.    Yep, Anna was a little nervous getting started, but then a deer showed up and so did the magic.  Instead of freaking out about if her hair was right, if the rain would hold off or if her daughter was getting dirty, she just loved.

The way Anna loves her little girl is wild and fierce and out in the open for the world to see.  Actually the way Anna loves the world is wild and fierce.  I’m not actually sure that she even realizes the stark difference between the way she lives and loves and the way the people around her do.  She sees magic everywhere and it’s straight up intoxicating.  The even more amazing part is that she is raising another human being to see the magic in the world.   To feel all of her big feelings through her tiny little body instead of shutting them down.  It sounds corny and stuff but it has made me think twice when encouraging my own daughter to stop crying and calm down when she “overreacts”  to the scrape on her knee,  or her irrational fear of ants.  Maybe those feelings aren’t wrong, maybe she’s allowed to have them, and feel them, and move on from them when she’s ready, regardless of how uncomfortable or inconvenient to my life those feelings are.   I look at little Ava, and am amazed.  I’m amazed at how she sees the world, I’m amazed at how fierce she is in some ways and how tender she is in others and I truly believe that the world is a better place as a whole just because she’s in it.

I feel truly lucky to have spent so much time with these two; living a life of intentional love and wonder.  I hope that you can see the true magical parts of them in these pictures the same way I can.

Meet Anna and Ava