The Card She Made Me Hand Over

Some of the best things in life start with a stranger's confidence.

We were at a wine tasting — a casual afternoon, the kind where conversations drift from table to table and you end up talking to people you never expected to meet. I was just another guest with a glass in hand when someone in the Paes family pulled out their phone to grab a group photo. I offered to take it for them instead, the way you do when you notice a family trying to squeeze into the frame.

That's when my mom stepped in.

Without a beat of hesitation, she announced to the group that I was a photographer. Not asked. Announced. Then she turned to me and said I needed to give her my card. Not as a request. As a fact. So I handed one over, laughing — and honestly not thinking much of it. Those kinds of moments happen, and they don't always turn into anything.

But two years later, an email landed in my inbox.

It was the Paes family. The girls were graduating. And when the time came to actually document that season — to hold on to something real before everything changed — they remembered that night. They remembered the card. They called me.

That two-year gap matters more than it might seem.

A lot can happen in two years. Life moves fast, and most of the business cards handed out at wine tastings end up forgotten in a coat pocket. But this family held onto it. When the moment arrived that actually deserved to be photographed — a graduation, a closing chapter, a threshold moment — they came back. That kind of trust is not something you can manufacture. It's built slowly, in the background, before a single shutter has clicked.

When we finally got together for the session, it felt easy. The girls were natural in front of the camera, relaxed and genuinely themselves. We weren't manufacturing something polished or posed. We were just spending time together, and I happened to have a camera.

That's what graduation portraits should feel like.

Senior year has a texture to it that is hard to describe until it's behind you. It's somewhere between pride and nostalgia, between who you've been and who you're becoming. The light is different. The way a person carries themselves is different. And it passes faster than any of us are prepared for.

Photographs from this season don't just capture what someone looks like. They capture who they were at this exact, unrepeatable moment. The confidence. The softness. The quiet sense of something ending and something beginning at the same time. Years from now, those images will carry far more weight than they do today.

The Paes session was a reminder of why this work matters. Not because the photos are perfect — though I think they're beautiful — but because they're true. They feel like those girls. They feel like that family. And that's the whole point.

If you have a senior graduating this year — or know a family who does — I would love to be part of documenting that season. Sessions are relaxed and guided. You don't need to know how to pose or what to wear. You just show up, and we take care of the rest.

Reach out through  the website  to check availability and get started. These seasons go quickly. So do the openings on the calendar.