I love love LOVE when I get to photograph college alumni because I always feel like I have an instant connection with them after my previous career working with Grinnell College students and my husband’s job as a professor.  When I first met Nora, we were both (rather conspicuously) the only visibly pregnant women at an early fall faculty get together at a mutual friends, so obviously we were going to chat 🙂  Very quickly, I learned that Nora’s due date was just a few weeks before mine, that they were here for a position at the college, that they had graduated mere weeks before we moved here (that made me feel old — how can there already be alumni that graduated in our era that are now coming back to TEACH?!?), and that Nora had already been scoping out photographers in the area and knew my name because she’d had found my website!
After a bit more chit chat, we went our ways, though I did mention to Nora that even though I don’t show a lot of family, maternity, and baby photos on my website, I’m always happy to do a lifestyle session if that’s what they are looking for.  And her eyes lit up!  So we scheduled an easy going mini session for “late” fall, and I looked forward to it.
Anyone who was in Iowa this past fall knows that it was beyond bizarre when it came to weather.  Not only did the leaves change color incredibly late, but the temperature was all over the place.  We had some days in October that were super cold, and many that were quite warm.  But the real shame of it all is that the leaves changed colors about 3 weeks later than normal, and when they finally changed, it was a super quick burst of color, and then BOOM – the color was gone, and it was sad and gray November.  Whomp whomp.  Luckily, the date I scheduled for their mini session, was neither cold nor warm, nor wet…but it also looked NOTHING like fall.  More like summer or spring.  So, we’ll just call this the pretend fall mini session 🙂
Nora insisted they didn’t want the stereotypical “hand on the tummy” pose for every shot — but we had to do at least one
Love when the first “baby” of the family is also involved – their dog!
This little residential corner of Grinnell is one of my favorite spots!
Hope you guys are doing well settling in as a family of 3 now!
