Brotherly Love Meets "I know you're only in town for 2 days, but can you help me with this one thing?"

My brother Braedan (Brady) lives in Virginia at the moment. He is a Ph.D. Biology/Evolution Researcher at the University of Virginia, having moved there after stints at University of Oregon and University of Washinton, including a multi-month research expedition to Antarctica. 

Sounds impressive, right? While it is actually impressive, I still just see him as my brother Brady. I think the world of him and Alex and Annie do too. All our available extended family that can try to get together to see him whenever he is home. Usually, it's about 2 or 3 times each year that he's able to get home, but the last couple years have seen more frequent visits. The increased visits came from many unforeseen reasons. He needed to spend a week at home when he moved from Washington to VA while he waited for his apartment to become available, he came home while our mom battled cancer for nearly a year, and when other family members fell ill. He didn't have the flexibility after all the unexpected trips to make it back for multiple holidays. This year, the pattern continued with another close family member falling ill. It seems like the cycle never ends, but Brady has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know, so he will never fail to be there for people when they need it most. 

All that brings me to the point of this post. As you can imagine, having all those unexpected trips makes each one very short with little to no free time while he's around. He was home for a wedding in the family a couple months ago and again, had almost no extra time while he was here. It' not his fault, but it means that we have to spend our time wisely while he's here and we try to make it a point not to ask him for much of anything while he's here so that he enjoys his time, rather than have to work. Unfortunately for him, though, he happened to be back for the wedding around the same time we moved into our new studio downtown and we needed to get some practice shooting people in our new space. He was in need of some updated headshots, so it was partly mutual, but it still felt like I was asking him to take more time away from family than usual. 

Even with extra time being taken from his trip, it ended up being worth it for all of us. Alex and I learned some things about our new studio that we were not aware of (including a couple good shooting angles provided by a staircase), and Brady got some great (if I do say so myself, haha) headshots to use. We are so happy that we could get those for him and we can't thank him enough for his help and willingness to try many...... many different poses and positions. I could only ask him to try so many different things because he's my brother. If I asked a regular client to have that much patience while I constantly change settings to get everything just right in a new space, I wouldn't blame them for wanting to walk away, haha. Fortunately, that is not something that happens during normal shoots, and it was only because it was our new studio, where I can control the lighting and space, that I was so picky. 

At the end of the session, we were all happy with the results and could say that we had a really fun time. I'm glad we had that time together and that we had help getting to know the ins and outs of our new studio's lighting and terrain. 

Don't forget to spend time with family whenever you can! We're more than willing to let people check out our studio, and we love to take pictures, so even if you're not in need of a full photography session package, ask us about our Mini Sessions!