raising up nine

Sometimes the hardest posts to write are the sessions I loved the most; This is definitely one of those cases. Bee contacted me through Instagram about booking a session when we were on our California road trip in June. She told me she had 9 babies (NIIIIIINE) and wondered if that would be too much for me. She said all kinds of wonderful things about my work, and then she said the magic words: "I kinda love the crazy and different so even dressed in what they choose and not even looking but just being in the frame doing whatever kinda speaks to my heart..." (she also told me she had a daughter named Posie, so yeah: sold, sold and SOLD).

We met at their home in Los Gatos, California on a hot-as-blazes kind of afternoon. Baby Otis napped, while sweet Meme gave me a tour of the house, and Posie flipped me all kinds of sass, that made me grin from ear-to-ear. I have never in my life interacted with someone with the same name as mine and it was an interesting experience indeed, but she absolutely owns the name and has the perfect personality to accompany it. She made me proud in the two hours I was with her, and she isn't even my kid. Ha!

I could draft paragraphs about each of the nine children. Truly, the thing that I took away from this session more than anything is that raising nine incredibly kind, respectful, funny, and unique people is entirely possible. I'll be honest, I expected this session to be chaos and hard work, and while it's true we may have temporarily "lost" one of the children (side eyes to you, Amos), overall the afternoon we spent together was completely enjoyable. I am in awe of this family and their seemingly effortless bond. I was honored to be invited into their world and asked to capture it. I sure hope I did them justice.

xo, PQ