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.

Rachel turns sweet sixteen in Pittsburgh

Rachel loves boy bands. A lot. A whole, whole, whole, whole lot. She says loving boy bands is pretty embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as her grunge phase (to which I can relate). She loves them so much that she knits them scarves. When she’s not knitting scarves and mailing them to boy bands (One Direction is her favorite, although we did rock out some New Kids on the Block in the car), she attends a boarding school in Greensboro, North Carolina and comes home to Pittsburgh, PA as much as she can (something to which I can also relate). She roots for the Pens and works for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History working as a counselor for the camp programs for little kids. She can play guitar and speaks fluent Russian (her family’s from St.  Petersburg) and has three dogs.

I think Rachel is pretty darn awesome. Not only did she sing boy band songs for me, she also told me a lot of chemistry jokes. And anyone who tells me good chemistry jokes is automatically written down in my Book of Favorite People. Happy 16th birthday, Rachel… you rocked this out.

Tarsha’s Senior Portraits in Raleigh

I received my first e-mail from Tarsha back in August. A blog stalker, she wrote me an adorably flattering e-mail and asked if I would take her senior portraits this February. I was very excited to do just that as it would be my first senior portrait session. Tarsha wanted them at NC State where she had seen pictures I took there before and liked the variety. :)

Tarsha has quickly become my most special and meaningful session. Not only is she graduating high school, but she wasn’t supposed to. Two years ago, a tumor was found on Tarsha’s brain. Upon operating, they found that the tumor extended through her spinal chord. It couldn’t be completely removed, and her spinal chord was nicked in the process. What was supposed to be a few hours in the operating room turned into over 9 hours, and her parents were informed that Tarsha was unlikely to make it. In the unlikely chance that she did survive the operation, she would most likely not be able to walk, speak, or perform normal functions again… let alone graduate high school on time.

Miraculously, Tarsha survived her operation despite the doctor’s predictions and despite an infection in her brain that was a result of the operation. Not only did she survive, but through her OT team at the hospital, Tarsha was able to regain all of her functions and walk two months later. She has no noticeable outward signs that this ever occurred except for a scar and her therapy dog, Pastry. :) She is, despite every obstacle, graduating high school on time.

Her family (who tagged along for the session and who were AMAZING and have two ridiculously adorable pups) are so proud of Tarsha and everything that she’s accomplished. These pictures were very important to them to celebrate her outstanding and inspiring accomplishments. I feel honored to have been picked by Tarsha and to be honest, I was probably a lot more nervous than her. :) I wanted to make these pictures everything great so that she’d love them… and I hope I did her senior portraits justice. :) Here is some info on the gorgeous Ms. Tarsha… class of 2012. On time. :)

Favorite Band: The Beatles

Favorite Movie: The Hangover

Favorite Book: The Hunger Games Series

Plans After High School: Attend college at Appalachian State for business in order to open her own dance studio in the future (Tarsha does Modern dance!)

What She Loves About High School: English

What She Won’t Miss About High School: Math and waking up early

Portraits in Raleigh: Dana+Daniel+Midori+Hermine

I first met Dana and Daniel when I photographed their cat Hermine for a benefit I did early last year to raise money for Safe Haven for Cats, a no-kill shelter for cats in Raleigh. Dana was volunteering at Save Haven at the time and decided to have a session done of Hermine at their house. Hermine was really scared around new people and had a particular dislike for the camera, but was a beaaautiful kitty! Then this year I was contacted by Dana again, saying that her and Daniel and Hermine had welcomed in little Midori in June. :) I was so excited to meet her and to see the couple and their feisty cat again! Hermine apparently hasn’t been taking Midori’s entrance all that well… but actually she was quite less skittish this year than last (perhaps she’s gotten used to people coming and going and lots of noises from the baby). She still isn’t quite sure about Midori… and general avoids her, but Midori loves Hermine and is about to get to that crawling-and-tail-pulling age that I’m sure Hermine will appreciate. ;)

Dana and Daniel moved from Germany a while back and have jobs teaching psychology at NC State. They wanted a few pictures of Midori in her baby Santa dress(which is ADORABLE)! I asked if they had their tree up, but in Germany it isn’t custom to put their tree up until the night before Christmas, which I found very interesting! It must be nice to live somewhere where the Christmas decorations don’t start creeping in before Halloween. :P Enjoy the adorableness of this family!