Richmond Family Photoshoot

When people ask me to do family photos, my answer is always, “no.” When it’s people I love that ask, my answer is , “nooo….yes???”

My friends Brandon and Taylor had their son Luka in October 2021. For most of 2020 Taylor was pregnant and we shot many weddings together (she’s a photographer too). Between seeing her stomach grow month to month shooting weddings and watching her Instagram posts and stories (shoutout to social media), I was fully invested in my friends’ journey to parenthood!

When Luka arrived he was (and still is) the cutest thing (you’ll see for yourself shortly). Fast forward to this past fall and I attended his first birthday party before heading to shoot a wedding that happened to be in Richmond. As the holidays were approaching I thought it would be nice for their family to have their first holiday photos, so I volunteered myself, BUT I had the stipulation that I needed a lifestyle family shoot as well, and they agreed.

I drove down to Richmond a week or two later and to my surprise, we killed it. We started off at the train station. It took a little while for Luka to get comfortable and he kept trying to walk (a little too close to the stairs). Brandon and Taylor tried to hold him but he fussed since he wanted to walk.

We tried to do seated photos of the three of them on the stairs, but Luka wasn’t a fan, so that didn’t last very long. We went back up the stairs and Brandon put him on his shoulders and Luka had a blast! Once he was in the spirit we did some individuals with Taylor and Luka.

We walked down the stairs and Brandon threw on Luka’s beanie. I am a fan of Beanie Luka on Instagram, so I was adamant about him wearing it for at least some of the pictures haha. The bright orange worked really well to add a pop to the photos, since most of the colors were earth tones and darker variations of blues and greens. It was important to me to pick a location that still made the three of them the focus, while still utilizing a cool location.

Shortly after the beanie went on, we heard a train blow it’s horn from the distance. The train slowly rolled by and Luka lost his mind. He started pointing to the train and just stared in amazement. Taylor was holding him at the time, so she walked him closer to see, and I was able to get some really special photos of the two of them together.

Afterwards I got some solo shots of Luka looking like a Baby Gap model. Just look at him

Luka’s burst of Beanie Energy was short lived. He started getting sleepy and Brandon and Taylor told me it was Luka’s naptime, so we proceeded back to the car to take him to their house for naptime.

BUT, the Christmas pajama photos happened after he woke up, so checkout the next blog post for those!