We met Katie a few years ago at one of our favorite places, Halloween Horror Nights at Universal. I'd heard her name before I actually met her, but the year we officially made our acquaintance, she was playing the icon character, Lady Luck. As I got to know her, I was struck by her easy-going attitude and her sense of self-assuredness, so we connected straight away. It was evident to me quickly (and still is to this day) that Katie possessed a lot of qualities I admire; she was incredibly smart, funny, confident, calm, very stubborn, assertive, and sure of herself. I remember thinking not long after I met her, "Yeah, this Katie person is pretty much super awesome. I think we're going to get along just fine."
Fast forward through a few years of friendship to the fall of 2013. Katie was again a scareactor at HHN, this time as a zombie (or 'walker', whatever we were calling them at that point, heh heh, oh, IP rules) in the 'Hershel's Farm' area of the park. Toward the beginning of the run, she had a night off, and she came to the event to experience it as a guest and joined up with me. We hit a few areas of the park, with no specific agenda, just enjoying our evening. At one point, we were sitting in the San Fran area, resting on a bench just watching the performers in our vicinity to do their spooky thing, and Katie casually started a conversation with me.
Katie: "So, I need to book a session with you. Probably in like, January. How much is that going to run me?"
Me: "I don't know, it depends on the type of session." (I paused, momentarily confused.) "I mean, what are you needing? Like, head-shots or something?"
(Katie smiled, and pulled out her phone.) "Not exactly. I'm going to show you something that's highly confidential. Not many people know yet."
She proceeded to pull up a photo of a sonogram. I stared at it for a moment.
Me: "Oh, cool! Someone is having a baby?"
Katie (laughing): "Uh, yes."
At this moment, it hit me that she was telling me she was pregnant, and I fell off the bench, hit my head, and blacked out. (Okay, not really.) But I was surprised, delighted, and excited.
I realized that Katie was brewing a tiny person in her tummy and offered the proper congratulations to her. From there, we set about planning her maternity session. (I might add that it's pretty much a perfect reflection of us and our friendship that we decided to sit and muse calmly on plans for a maternity portrait session while ensconced in a dark, zombie-filled scarezone at the nation's premier Halloween event with hapless people running around us screaming--because, really, would you expect anything less of us?) Katie told me she knew she wanted to do the maternity session at the beach at sunset, and that she was trusting me with the rest.
We decided that, during the run on a night when she was working, we'd do one really bad-ass maternity photo right there in the mean streets of HHN with her in full costume and makeup, because it was just too perfect an opportunity not to. This became her 'official' pregnancy announcement, and it might be among the coolest photos I've ever taken. Oh hey, Baby Folger. Before you arrived, Mama was a zombie. No pressure to be really into Halloween or anything...we're just sayin'.
Fast forward a few months to January of 2014. Katie: with her big beautiful baby belly, ready to rock, Brendan, ready to drive, and me, ready to shoot, and a little 2.5 hour jaunt to Clearwater Beach, where the forecast called for clear skies and a lovely sunset. At this point I'd like to remind you that, very often, meteorologists suck at their jobs, and as we were en route to the west coast, the rain rain rain came down, down, down. But we toughed it out and, being that we were halfway there when the sky opened, we decided to just go the rest of the way and see what we ended up with. If you're guessing that the weather didn't cooperate...you're guessing correctly. But we did what we could, got a few wonderful photos of Katie and her bump, and then reconvened for pizza in Clearwater.
I was happy with the photos we got. And Katie was happy with the fact that I was happy. But I knew, and so did she, that we'd missed out on the big, gorgeous, warm, burning sunset that the Gulf Coast of Florida is famous for. So we ate our pizza and decided we were not done yet. Baby Folger wasn't due until late March, so we had time.
Fast forward once again, this time to the latter part of February. Brendan: out of town visiting family and missing out on beach trip # 2. Katie: bigger than before, but still willing to hop in the truck and make the trip over to the Gulf again. Me: doing an anti-rain dance and offering all manner of blood sacrifices to the gods of the weather to just behave for one damn night, just willing the skies to give us the glorious sunset we'd hoped for on the first try. As luck would have it, our second attempt was the charm, and we got our giant colorful unclouded sun setting over the waters of the Gulf, just like we'd had in our minds from the beginning. Katie, at this point less than a month from when Baby would arrive, was a complete and total trooper, running all over on the beach to make sure we could take advantage of the setting sun, crawling on the rocks, and being the amazing resilient person that she always is, never complaining despite my mania ("Hey, so, you're cool to take off your shoes and jump over the rope that says 'No Trespassing' and crawl up on the sharp, scary rocks to make sure we can get the silhouette of you against the sunset, right? Great! Also, please don't fall and please don't hate me for making you run all over creation while you're like a billion months pregnant, and could you be a pal and sign this waiver releasing me from liability? Great, thanks!").
Baby Folger Sunset Maternity Portraits Take # 2: a success. I was happy, but most importantly, so was Katie. Mission accomplished.
And now, we again fast forward, to late March of 2014. I had jokingly told Katie a few times during the course of her pregnancy that she should just go ahead and have the baby on March 24th, because that's the same day my niece was born and this way it'd be easier for me to remember. (Har har har, I'm funny.) So, on March 24th, I was strolling around my local garden center, and I ended up in the greenhouse, where I was engrossed in the very intense process of selecting some low-light plants for my garden room, when I heard my phone jingling at me as a text message came through. It was just before 1:00pm. I pulled out my phone and read a text from Katie:
"I have a baby girl. :)"
Showing all the decorum and dignity for which I am well known, I dropped the potted plant I was holding and burst into hysterical happy tears, confusing and frightening the daylights out of the Lukas Nursery employee who was closest to me.
Nora Elizabeth Folger made her grand entrance at 12:13pm on March 24th, 2014. 9 pounds, 7 ounces, 20 inches, perfect, pink-cheeked, healthy, and breathtakingly gorgeous. Mama Katie and Daddy John were just as proud as could be.
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Over the next twelve months, through portrait sessions and various adventures, we got to know Baby Nora. She is, in many ways, just like her mama: sweet, strong, willful, and determined to have her way. And in many other ways she's like her daddy: incredibly funny, a little bit stubborn, and brimming with personality. Some of her sessions required two attempts, much in the way her maternity session did; it's as if the uncooperative weather in the first go-around of the maternity photos meant to herald her impending arrival were a portent of how things would go for her other sessions. If Nora wasn't having it, nobody would get their way but her. No sense in fighting the inevitable. Did I ever fault her? Not for a second. Knowing Katie pretty well at this point, and having to gotten to know John better, and being a willful stubborn girl myself (sorry, Bren), I was always one to admire Nora's moods and her obstinate insistence that things happen on HER clock, when SHE was darn well ready for them to happen, and being that I'm very used to functioning on Baby Standard Time, it never occurred to me as anything but completely normal. It wasn't even remotely surprising to me that Nora would, from word one, be calling the shots when it came to her portrait sessions. I would expect nothing less. Katie and John, for the first session which required more than one attempt, were very apologetic, which was unnecessary. Secretly? It meant that I got to spend more time hanging out with them and playing with Baby Nora. No harm, no foul, and certainly no need for apologies, because Nora's sessions were always an absolute blast, and every new milestone was a chance to get to know this awesome, wonderful, funny, adorable little lady better.
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Somehow, we've arrived here just about a year later, nearly an entire 365 days have passed by, and we're done with Nora's first birthday session and about to ring in the big O-N-E with a fun party in her honor. For her first birthday portraits, we decided since we'd done sunSET on the west coast for the maternity portraits, that it was only fitting to do sunRISE on the east coast to mark her first birthday. So bright and early, we headed out to New Smyrna on the first day after daylight savings time for the last session of Nora's first year. Our friend Amanda made Nora an amazing knitted mermaid tail costume for the occasion, and Nora was every bit as much of a rockstar for her beach session as Mama Katie had been for hers way back last year in Clearwater...how completely perfect.
Every time I hit the year mark with a client, I sit back and say to myself, whoa. WHOA. Wasn't it just yesterday that you told me you were expecting? Wasn't it just yesterday that we were doing maternity photos? How has a whole year gotten by us so quickly? As a photographer, I always feel a jumble of emotions at the end of the first year--it's delightful, happy, bittersweet, sort of sad, a little bit heartbreaking, and a whole lot of beautiful, all at once.
Nora Elizabeth, we are glad to have you (and your awesome parents, too) in our lives. We are so glad to have gotten to know you, honored to have been able to capture your first year of milestones, and delighted to see what adventures the world has in store for you. Happy first birthday, little Miss Nora. We can't wait to see what life brings your way and we're excited to watch you take the journey.
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