Friend becomes a Mommy

K and I met at band camp in the 7th grade. Yes, some may refer to us as "band nerds", but I enjoyed playing my clarinet, and that was my identity all through school. All of my friends were from band and we spent many, fun hours together at the weekly football games and annual band trips. After middle school, we went to the same high school together, and she, along with 2 other girls from school/band, made up my close, little group of best friends.

(I'm sort of getting weepy thinking back on all our fun times together!)

As you can see from my documentation above, not only did we always go to our school dances and hang out in our little group, and eat at the same restaurant afterwards, all together with our dates, but after we hugged our dates goodnight, we would meet at one of our homes and all spend the night. (Just the four of us, no other friends - honestly it was probably hard enough to try not to fight with each other since we were all like sisters, that adding any other friends into our little clique would have thrown off the dynamic!) We actually rotated between houses each dance. It was always fun to reminisce about the night, and what we liked/didn't like about our dates. What girls looked pretty, what dresses we thought should never have been taken off the rack, etc. (your standard gossipy, high school girly-ness!)
~ p.s. - 1 benefit of practicing in the marching band in August in 100* heat... you do get a great tan!

(Pardon the cheesy pose and poor quality of the scan.)

Our senior year, we just *had* to have senior pictures all together. Not only was it *the* thing to do, but being the best friends we all were, we took a senior ad page out together in the back of our year book, so it was very fitting that we needed some professional shots to sum up our 6 years together - white eyeliner and all.
These girls definitely make up my schoolhood memories, and I couldn't imagine it any other way.

So, all that to be said... K is pregnant!

She is my first friend that I still keep in contact with from school that is going to be a mommy. Remembering back to all the immature, ....(well, immature about sums it up!) fun ways of our youth, it is somewhat difficult to grasp that this now adult, married woman, is about to start such an amazing new chapter in her life.

While shooting her session, I kept thinking to myself, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have pictured us doing this in our future. Well, a. - that I would actually get to live my dream as a photographer, and b. - that we would be of the few people who are blessed enough to keep in touch with old friends.

One of my favorite memories: K was the oldest in our group, which of course meant that she was the first to get her driver's license and car. Well, that first car was a minivan, I'd say a 1989? (This was in 1997). Being that we now had transportation with just.us.girls..... we could have cared less about what we were rolling around town in, it was just amazing, the feeling of freedom! So I remember one afternoon in particular, I think this was early on in her minivan days, she drove all of us to the mall. Remember how I said the "immature" part of our youth??? Well, our idea of fun was Chinese fire drills! We'd jump out of the car, run around, and then jump back in through the sliding door. I think during this particular episode, the traffic started going while we were still out in the road, (immature/dangerous, those words intermix...). So the other girls and myself ran as fast as we could into the van, and I just remember ending up upside down in the seat, laughing so hard that a pair of Depends may have helped a girl out in this situation.
That's all I've got to say about that...

:)

Her little boy is going to be named Andrew, so while a skull and cross-bones at a bar may not instantly bring sweet thoughts about a precious newborn, we couldn't resist the "Andy's" aspect.

She was great about letting me have as much creative freedom as I wanted. I feel like from session to session, I don't have a real "stamp" on my work that makes it look like something Birdseye Photography has done. I want to make sure that each of my clients are happy, so if some are more traditional than others, I try to please them just as much as my clients that are a little more artsy and free-spirited about their photo sessions. I feel like I'm getting into a modern niche, though nothing really clear-cut yet. Does that make sense? As much as I love to be artistic with my work, and try new angles, I certainly would never want to make anyone feel unwelcome if that is not their particular style. Though I suppose I'd also say that clearly, traditional is not what I'm practicing, but then that makes me feel bad for all the traditionalists out there because a modern, photojournalistic style is certainly what's sweeping the new age, and while that's where my heart is, the pleaser in me wants everyone to be happy!

*Well, that was certainly a tangent if I ever wrote one!*

I'm looking forward to meeting little Drewberry muffin!
:)