Durham Family Photographer

Carolyn Scott is a Durham family photographer. She specializes in candid and documentary at-home family photography in the Triangle area (Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Cary, etc). Carolyn’s work has been published in several popular books and magazines, including Apartment Therapy, BuzzFeed, and Fangoria. Locally, she’s been voted Best Photographer in Durham Magazine’s Best Of Durham and INDY Week’s Best of the Triangle. She lives in South Durham with her husband Geoff and three cats.

Katherine and Jon have been friends and clients for so many years! It was so much fun to catch up with them and their kiddo, who is a HUGE cat guy even though he doesn’t have a cat. He did like to hear about my cats and see their photos, and then he drew them a picture at the end of the session which was a bunch of smiley faces nested inside other smiley faces. Our cats loved it. He’s also a top notch superhero who excels at riding his scooter around the neighborhood, drawing the beach in chalk, and building Rube Goldberg devices with magnet tiles. He’s a super cool kid with super cool parents who have amazing taste in music and television while being the nicest humans. I love this little family as friends and clients – and there’s nothing better than that!

Delighted to have these folks over to the house for a mini family photo session in Durham! Jaymie works with my good friend Jen, and since all my favorite people also know all the best people, we hit it off right away. They were a ton of fun to work with and their kids were super sweet. Little brother loves Home Alone (only called me a filthy animal once) and Mario and Luigi. Big sister loves Animal Crossing and crochet. They both love playing rock, paper, scissors but are the first kids I’ve seen to develop the advanced RPS technique of slowing way down before throwing their choice in hopes of buying themselves a millisecond to see what their sibling threw down first. Unfortunately, they both do this at the exact same time, and therefore it ends in extreme slow-mo and nobody wins. Thankfully they’re great at being redirected. Loved every second photographing this fun and adorable crew of four!

Alex and Danielle welcomed a new baby girl to their family in December, so I was overjoyed to update their family photos with her, their son, and their 16 year-old dachshund Honeybee. Their baby girl is so sweet and looks so much like her brother did at that age! Big brother is enamored with her, and talks nonstop about his sister and also Honeybee, both of which he loves hugging and kissing on the forehead. He also loves cameras (!) and was a great assistant during the shoot, taking additional pictures and making sure my bag was properly packed. This family of kind creatives warms my heart and it was a great way to start off my family photos of 2026!