This is the story of how I became my family’s personal photographer.

Back in 2017, mybrother had a beautiful baby boy on the way and my sister had two incredible girls arriving a month later. I very specifically did not want to be the family’s photographer and I made this very clear to everyone. This was before I went on the photography journey that would lead me to where I am at today. I had a camera, but I wasn’t great at using it yet and photoshoots stressed me out quite a bit.

So, because I had made it so clear that I was not going to be the family photographer, my Mom took it upon herself to try out some baby photography of her own. The results were… OMG, so bad. These were MY nieces and they looked… well, honestly, they looked dead. My mom laid them in this tin bucket with these leaves around them. The lighting was just so orange and the whole thing was just bizarre.

My mom was so proud of these and I love her so much, but I couldn’t just let that go. These were my nieces and they were going to have a proper photoshoot, damnit! Here are some adorable pictures of them as newborns.

I loved these little girls so much from the moment I met them and they are such a huge part of my life. As my goddaughters, they are the closest I will ever get to having kids (which is just fine with me – see the name of this website). In a lot of ways, my photography has grown with these little girls. We still do yearly themed photoshoots around their birthday and it’s a great marker to see my progress. I am really grateful I started taking pictures of them when they are this small. I guess I owe my my a big thank you for her little tin bucket and leaf photoshoot!