They say that days go slow and years go fast. It feels like just yesterday I was catching glimpses of a tiny babe, Taylor, a few rows up in church.  Little did we know that a few years later my cousin Travis would be introducing us to Taylor and her mom Marrie as a new part of the family and now Tay is just months away from graduating from high school.

From Marrie (Taylor’s Mom): We are so proud of the FCC college classes she is taking to finish her last 2 high school credits. She is the most kind, caring and compassionate young lady. She participates and unified classes at school where they are working with mentally and physically handicapped individuals. She’s been doing this for the last three years of her High School career and the relationships that she has made with these individuals incredible. Her newest venture is working on the farm. It is hard work but she steps up to the challenge every day. She is learning to operate the farm equipment including tractors and skid loaders and can hang what the best of them all day long. We are extremely proud of all that she has accomplished and look forward to see what the future holds for her. Even though she has had a rough year we are amazed with how she continues to fight daily. Taylor is absolutely the strongest person we have ever met. She is our hero, she will never understand how much we love her or how proud we are of her.

Over the years I’ve gotten to see that Taylor believes in the importance of photos to remember the special moments and people in your life. When she was 12, Taylor came up to me all on her own and asked if I would do a session with her and her best friend as a specia birthday gift to her friend.  So, I wasn’t surprised when Taylor wanted to include another significant friend in her senior photos, her dog Charlie.

I met Taylor and Charlie at Loy’s Station Park, the same place we did part of her best friend session all those years ago. Loy’s Station is a beautiful space in Rocky Ridge, Maryland, with a variety of settings, including a set of railroad tracks that Taylor wanted to incorporate. It gave us ample options to capture Taylor in each of the outfits she brought. The significance of the setting was an added bonus!

One of the things I love most about Loy’s Station are the numerous open fields in addition to the rustic structures. The golden hour lighting cast a perfect halo around Taylor’s hair as we captured her in a field of tall wispy grass. As we were leaving the field of grass, Travis noticed a patch of small purple flowers. These low lying flowers were an ideal setting to capture some shots of Taylor sitting with Charlie.

One more thing we captured during her session was the new tattoo she recently got on her back. The covered bridge in the park was surrounded by white wildflowers. The contrast of the red rustic bridge and soft white flowers provided an idea location of focusing in on this important detail for Taylor.

Taylor, I can’t believe you’re already graduating from high school. I’m excited to see what this next chapter holds for you and know that you are capable of anything that is put in front of you!

-xo-

Jamie