(Portland Oregon Portrait Photographer)
While visiting my mom in Portland, Oregon this summer, I took Morgan’s 15 year old portraits!
Being a photographer comes with its own sets of perks and drawbacks…and one of those drawbacks is that, in the midst of my hectic session schedule for the last few years, I haven’t been so good at taking my own kids’ pictures regularly! Like the contractor who hasn’t remodeled their own home or the dentist whose kids have crooked teeth, it’s sometimes hard to make myself schedule time to ‘work’ for my family!
One of my personal goals for this year has been to get over myself and start taking each kid out for their own portrait session near their birthday. We make it a special event, and it’s been such a treat and so completely worth the effort! They choose an outfit or two—as well as the location—and for a couple hours it’s just the two of us out there, having fun and capturing memories.
Morgan, who turned 15 in May, chose to hold hers off a bit, so we could shoot her portraits on the Oregon Coast when we went to visit my mom in June. With school back in session, I’ve finally gotten around to blogging her pictures!
Morgan was a willful baby, a precocious preschooler, and a tenacious grade-schooler…and she almost bested me in each of those stages! But as she’s matured, those challenging traits have developed into steadiness, emotional maturity and determination to do what’s right. I love this intelligent, articulate and creative girl, who is growing up to be a wonderful young woman!
We had such a fun time choosing her outfits, curling her hair (even though it went completely flat within minutes of getting there!), walking to the beach, and playing around in the sand and waves. It’s fun for me to share my photography with my kids, partly because they really only see me one way most of the time. I’m ‘Mom’, and that means I’m often teaching, cooking, cleaning, disciplining, fixing problems, acting as ‘nurse’, mediating or chauffeuring. Morgan was beaming during her shoot, and actually said “So this is what you’re like when you’re the photographer!” haha! I’m not sure if I should have laughed or cried at that (because what does that mean, exactly? That I’m not so fun when I’m being ‘mom’?), but I chose to laugh about it, and be grateful to show another side of myself to my daughter. 🙂
By nature, Morgan is often fairly serious–but it’s so fun to see her come alive and see her face light up when she’s feeling silly or having fun. I’m SO glad that happened during her shoot! I’ll always treasure these pictures that captured her funny and playful side.
Love you, Miss Mo!
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These are such gorgeous portraits of Morgan, Erin! You’ve captured her fun, bubbly personality so perfectly. I hope you’re going to print and frame some of these…. especially that last one with her and the sunset. Such special memories.
Ummm…. One word…WOW!!! These are beautiful! There is one imparticular that I totally see her daddy!
Oh thank you Ginger! 🙂 I always see Rustin in her, but not many people do–it’s funny how people see such different things hahaha.