Gratitude #7 {Laughing}

This needs a little explaining. The family that invited me down here (T+S) are some of the coolest people I know. You may remember them from this post. Anyway, one of the reasons I think they are so cool is they used to be on Broadway together (the parents). They were both Cats, and then he was the handsome prince in “Beauty and the Beast” and she was one of those gals that flirts with Gaston. He first saw her when she was a dancer in “West Side Story” and was smitten. Now he’s a dentist. And she’s a full-time mom of two darling princesses.

But they are still theater people at heart. I wanted to do a whimsical, styled shoot with them that would put them back into character. I told her the concept I had in mind and suggestions for clothing and props. Last night we laid everything out on the floor to see how it would look together. Hubby got involved too (he came up with the yellow tutu under the blue polo dress)! We were getting so excited as T pulled out bobbles and hair pieces and stockings and that red patent belt and that perfect yellow purse…We all had the same vision–R knew he had to peg his pants without me saying it out loud…T knew she had to put the girls hair in piggy/ponytails. It was just meant to be.

So we get there, and started shooting (more pics to follow), and I wanted the girls to be licking their suckers while the parents blew bubblegum bubbles. Well, R accidentally spit his gum out trying to blow the bubble and it landed on the ground next to L (you can see the pink wad next to the curb). The three of us died laughing, and then we laughed even harder when we saw this picture later tonight. I swear, we laughed for five minutes straight, until our sides ached and our eyes watered. This is the kind of laughter I’m talking about!

We took some shots in more muted clothes as well, but tonight as we looked at all the pictures, they were both giddy as puppy lovers about these silly shots. They haven’t done any “character” work in years, and it felt so good to them to be who they were and do what they did when they fell in love in the first place. And that’s really the best part of the shoot. Not just that they have great pictures, but they have a memory of how they felt while taking them.

*I’ll update this post with more pics later after I do some more editing.