storytelling sessions

Equinox // Special Spring Offer !

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“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"

"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine.”

- Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

 

The seaway is still full of ice, but the days are getting longer and the sunshine a little warmer, and the bears (and me) are coming out of hibernation and I say that's reason to celebrate!

From now until the end of April I am offering a special price on my Storytelling Sessions. If reserved before April 30th, you will receive your session, digital files, and a custom made hardcover photo book at 25% off the regular package price. These sessions can be booked for anytime in 2018.

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The Baggiero Family: Storytelling Session

I have known Marci and Subby since I was 20 years old. (15 years..what?!) I became friends with Marci when I first started in the hair industry. I was hired as the assistant to the owner of a salon in Connecticut; she was already a colorist there. We became friends almost immediately. She brought me to get my nose pierced. We would go out in Hartford and have sleepovers at her place after. We both LOVED John Mayer, and we sat on hold for hours one morning to get tickets to his show at the Oakdale theatre. I later moved to New York City, and then to Québec, but we always remained friends. I still return to work in her salon; Reaction in Farmington, when I am back in Connecticut. So when she asked me to photograph her family at their new home, I obviously accepted with gratitude. 

There is something so incredibly special and ALWAYS unique about these Storytelling Sessions. Especially when shot at home. As most of my friends and clients know, I am a lifestyle photographer. My goal is to enter your life as it is, to blend into it so as if you almost don't even know I'm there, and then to capture it. All of it, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. For me, especially after having kids, I too often feel like life is just slipping through my hands like sand. Sometimes it feels like slow-motion; I can see it seeping through and falling, and I see it happening to a point that I feel like I might actually be able to stop it, but as slowly as it is falling is as slowly as I can catch it. It's beautiful, and the light hits it just so, and it makes your heart stop because you realize in that moment that this is it. Each little grain of sand is a moment in your life.

My hope is that these images I help create are a few of those grains of sand that we can actually hold onto.. REAL moments, in real light, in real locations; full of emotion. 

Thank you Marci for trusting me to capture a tiny part of your story together.. You have a beautiful family, and I am so lucky to be able to call you a friend. 

xoxo

J

The Benito Family

Almost a year ago, I had the honor of photographing Brian and Sara's wedding in Sturbridge, Mass. I can't believe it has already been a whole year. It just feels like, lately, time is evading me. I don't think I'm alone though.. our children seem to get bigger right before our very eyes, some days it feels like I wake up with a new wrinkle that I swear wasn't there the day before. Every time I see my parents, they seem just a little bit older. It's this unavoidable cycle of life. It's the reason I want to tell people's stories for them, to try and freeze these precious little moments in time to look back on in years to come.

It was a windy, grey September evening when I met Brian and Sara for this session. We weren't even sure if we would get rained out or not but it held off. I met them and their two daughters, Payten and Loralye at a park in Suffield, Connecticut. Brian is an old, dear friend of mine so it means so much more that I am able to capture them together. The girls are two of the most free-spirited kids I've ever met(the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!), and what started off as a casual walk through the woods and a quick cousin's shoot in a field, ended up with the two girls swimming in the lake fully clothed, and then trotting off through the parking lot back to the car in their birthday suits. 

I left this shoot feeling so rooted and grateful and humbled by our sweet time together. This is the exact reason I will always always want to photograph families. This is what it's all about.