C Family - Reading MA - Irish Eyes Photography
When you start down a path with a passion that becomes your livlihood, it's a slow rise. First you test the waters a lot. Then you gain momentum and confidence, finally allowing yourself to believe you might actually have carved out a place in this universe for yourself. Strangers start to hire you. More strangers hire you. You can't believe it but year after year clients are coming back - people are loving what you're doing and you're flabbergasted that this is happening and it's going really well. Yet with all that, I don't think you've truly arrived until family reaches out and hires you to capture them. It's funny; they often say you shouldn't work with family. Well I'm here to say if your family is as awesome as mine is, you should go for it.I received an email from my cousin (2nd cousin? First cousin once removed? Who knows. She's my mother's first cousin and I love her) telling me she'd like to have her family portraits updated. The boys had been children the last time they had them done, and with both now officially (almost officially?) men, she wanted something to capture this time before they headed off into the world and created their own homes with their own walls to cover with their own family portraits. I loved this idea. It's so often a moment to be recognized and people always focus on family portraits when kids are younger. What a great sense of time and an appreciation for it, my dear cousin had. So, we scheduled the shoot to be held at their absolutely beautiful home in Reading MA.
It always made all of us laugh; these two boys and myself are the only redheads in the family and yet my red hair definitely comes from my father's side and if I remember, no one really knows where their hair came from! The grown ups used to have me hold them at parties so they could take pictures. I loved it. I think the boys were confused. Hahaha.---Every year, my mother's side of the family has a great big Christmas party. It is often held at this particular cousin's home. The first year Mike (my husband) went, and he met everyone, we talked about the evening in the car ride home. We both agreed that if we could have a marriage like my cousin and her husband here, we would be very happy. They created a beautiful life together filled with laughter and love. It's just so lovely to see.
Laughter. And jerseys. Because why not.
My cousin's home has an extension on it. It is an in law apartment for my Great Aunt. It's equally as beautiful and equally filled with laughter and love (must be where my cousin learned it). Aunt Jean simply had to be in a few of the pictures. Not only because she is (and continues to be) a presence in everyone's lives, but of the very real part of their family she is. 
Gram, to her grandchildren. 
These portraits were taken in July.Aunt Jean passed away a few weeks before Christmas.
Her light and love continues to burn brightly in all of us.I am so happy to have had the chance to take these portraits. I am so lucky to have known her. She always made me feel thought of. She always made me laugh. I miss her but I know she lived her life in the best way possible. If I want my marriage to be like my cousin's, I want my life to be as full and happy as Aunt Jean's.-Kerry:)