you make my day

yan palmer August 5, 2015

mixed tape

yan palmer June 24, 2015

i met megan and james a few years back when i photographed their tear fest, stunning wedding (check it here). i spent the day smiling and feeling hope grow up like a mountain in my chest that by the end of the day was bigger than all the hills of anxiety and fears i was feeling at the time about being a single mom. megan was one of the most radiant brides i've been lucky enough to photograph.....she was also the mother of 5 equally lovely children.

they gave their wedding guests a cd as a thank you, like a lot of couples seem to do these days, but UNLIKE a lot of wedding cd's it was good. REALLY good. i had it on rotation for almost an entire summer---it bonded me to them in the way that only perfect mixed tapes can do among like minded people. and that was on top of the already puppy like attachment i formed to them as their wedding photographer.

so when they had their first baby together and asked me to photograph them as a family of EIGHT in D.C., fireworks went off in my heart, and i couldn't wait to spend a few more hours in the light of their unique brand of love. this is what we got when i did. thanks guys, i hope i get some more time with you soon. xxx

simple

yan palmer May 25, 2015

years ago now, before i got to photograph families in their homes all over the country, i was a little younger and a lot hungrier. hungry to MAKE the shoots that i wanted to happen, happen. because those dream clients, the ones i KNEW had to be out there somewhere, who would like what i liked, and saw what i saw weren't exactly knocking down my door, to say the least.

so with a lot of help from the people close to me, i found a space and built what i saw, and what i wanted to show people if they would let me. a studio made to look like a home with white floors, white walls, thin white curtains over the tall windows. a simple bed with, you guessed it, white sheets. i just wanted it to be clean. i just wanted there to be light. and i just wanted it to feel like a home that a real family would fill up with real love.

the studio only lasted for 18 months. felt like a bit of a failure at the time. but now, after a lot of losses, break downs and break throughs plus more, hustle, sweat and tears----now, they build it for me. well, probably more for them. ha.

the point is, if you are out there, reading this, struggling and feeling like maybe you can't keep working at this thing, that vision you see, well we're about to have a field of dreams moment, because i'm here to tell you ---

if you build it they will come. you can do it.

a little more true

yan palmer May 20, 2015

these images are the most true thing i've shot in a long time.

and i can't take the credit.

it was this mama's deep desire to live honestly that let me, no, that encouraged me to create them. i don't think i would have had the guts to step outside my comfort zone of constantly posing and directing (yes, i am pained to confess to how much i pose) if she hadn't made clear to me that what she wanted was something real.

not the real that we say and pretend to mean, but then

wear the cloths we bought especially for the shoot a week ago,

clean our house furiously the day before so that it looks more perfect than it ever does on a day to day basis,

then let the photographer (me) pose you in "natural looking" spaces in your house the entire shoot.

but the kind of real where the daughter stayed in her school uniform she came home in for half the shoot, mom put on her most familiar, faded skirt, the house was the kind of messy that happens when mom is out of town and dad is left in charge for a few days, and they hardly paused in their afternoon routine for the few poses i DID make them endure (okay, i broke down at times and couldn't help myself).

it was hard to shoot. and it wasn't. because the thing about truth is its liberating. and liberation is addictive.