The Chambers Family | Lafayette, TN

This is the perfect example of how sessions don't go as planned; however, it's also the perfect example of what family is all about. No session is perfect. There's no way I could keep count of all the sessions I've had that haven't went according to plan, how many locations have fallen through, how many ideas have gotten scrapped, how many mistakes I've made or visions that just didn't quite turn out like it did in my head... So, this session was no different.

April and I had planned a nice, long evening of family portraits by the creek. Ideally, we wanted to have pictures of the boys, individuals, couples, and whole family shots - all posed and unposed with lots of smiling, happy faces.

But to be real... that didn't happen that day because sometimes...kids will just be kids. And you know what? IT'S OKAY. We didn't get the shots we wanted. We didn't have smiling faces the entire time. We didn't have the perfect session we hoped for... But what we did get was still pretty special. I was able to capture moments -- little boys just being little boys. I was able to capture brothers playing, fighting, crying, loving...

I wish I hadn't spent so much time in the beginning bribing and trying to get those picture perfect images together and just followed them around for the entire two hours. Instead, I crammed a bunch of candid photos in the last 30 minutes and come out with this:

Mostly just real life play time. But isn't that what you're going to remember most someday? :)