Family Portraits: The Thompsons

To celebrate my 27th birthday in February, I treated myself to a week-long trip up to North Carolina. The plan was to visit some national parks, collect a bunch of new counties and visit some friends I hadn’t seen in a while.

Two of those friends were the Thompsons. I met them in 2015, while I was working my first journalism job, but hadn’t seen them since I moved to South Dakota in 2016. Since that time, they got married and added a new a member to their family--a beautiful German shepherd furbaby, named Nelli.

They spent four days showing Riley and me around the North Carolina high country, and graciously letting my practice my family portraiture on them. I’m so grateful to them for letting us crash at their house and supporting my photography, and I’m so glad we got to reconnect after not seeing each for two years. And I can’t wait to get back up to North Carolina some time and see them again!

I’m going to be honest, I have mixed feelings about these photos. I love the happy smiles, and how very photogenic the whole family is, but I look at them and see what I could have done differently and better. They’re all medium shots and they’re a little too posed, but I think I still captured this little family pretty well--all together out enjoying the beautiful landscape that they love.

I learned a lot both shooting and editing these family portraits, and I hope that next time I see the Thompsons I can provide them with an even better final product.