Little Miss Curiosity is one of my favorite little people. She is sweet, cute-turning-beautiful, a talker, and most of all a lady of action. When I first met her, she reminded me of a gazelle ~ all legs and growing grace. At our session, she investigated Yates Mill, from the water to the leaves to the decking to the mill to the rocks, very thoroughly during our session this fall. I love photographing children at this age ~ she is just a tiny bit younger than my son ~ partly because it’s the time when their personalities really start to shine, partly because I love the challenge of getting a mix of expressions sans cheese, and mostly because it’s a precious stage where the last little bit of “baby” is giving way to toddler, and portraits offer a chance to hold on to the baby while looking forward to the emerging little person.

One of the coolest things about our planning for this session was that LMC’s parents brought up getting some shots of Mom and Dad in addition to our main focus of capturing some toddling adorable. I try to talk all parents into doing a few of these ~ how easy is it to be caught up in parenthood and to forget that you are married rather than partners in Raising Baby, Inc.? ~ so it was great to know that couple shots were also a priority. The last shot is one that I especially love because it is just fun to photograph a man who adores his wife. For myself, it is a little too easy to get lost in the day-to-day of running a household and a business, and I treasure the reminders that I actually am in love with this other person who lives at my house. The taller one too, not just the little one. Probably T and M have more perspective and don’t need these reminders quite the way that I do, but anyway I like to catch a guy looking like he is the luckiest man around because he found *this* woman and convinced her to marry him. Fortunately M looks like that a fair amount, so I got several opportunities.

As an aside, T has great portrait fashion ~ these are definitely on my 2011 list of best family photograph outfits. Everyone looks comfortable, stylish, like “them,” AND they mesh well with the environment.

So, without further writing from me, here are a few of my favorites from a recent session at Yates Mill (where all of the mill restoration and most of the tornado repairs seem to be complete).