Decade | Chapel Hill Portrait Photographer

When Amantia approached me about a scheduling a session to mark her tenth wedding anniversary, I really wanted to make it special. Almost everyone has wedding pictures, but very few ever go on to acknowledge later milestones as a couple with custom portraiture… And what a lovely way to document the extraordinary journey that marriage is! As we grow together, we look at each other differently and interact in ways that signify our shared experience; taken properly, pictures can capture that shift. I’ve always attempted to create portraiture that, at its core, captures who people are instead of just what they look like, and I was excited by the prospect of doing that for two people who’d spent ten years cultivating their identity together.

I met up with Amantia and Jason on a gorgeous summer morning at 6:45 (Remember this session? There’s just something magical about early morning light!). I reminded them that this experience was about them, and that their primary task was to stay focused on each other, and above all, to have fun. We started off just playing around with a couple of little games…

Then, with a little guidance and encouragement here and there, I stepped back and let them focus on each other, and,

well…

Take a look:

We all complain about forced smiles and awkward poses and interminable sessions, but have been trained to think that that’s what portrait sessions are all about. Well, I believe that gorgeous portraits can be made without any of that, and be all the better for it. These are some of my favorite images – gorgeous light aside, I truly believe that Amantia and Jason will look back at these for a lifetime and see just who they were, together, at this point in time – with many bonds made and with so very many yet to form.

Oh! I had such an amazing time with this shoot!!! I knew what I was seeing was fantastic, but what I felt was even better… I felt two people really letting go and doing what we all wish we could do in front of the camera: be ourselves. I’ll close with the very last shot of the day… and the only “smile and say cheese” shot we got (except by this time in the session, there was no cheese necessary):

xox,

annemie