Salem, MA Portrait + Wedding Photographer | Kim Indresano Photography Blog

I received some really worthy and wonderful nominations for my gratis portrait session announced back in November. At first I wanted to figure a way to select them all as winners but realized I just had to choose. And so Jen and Rick and their twin girls (nearly 2 months old when I photographed them) are who I decided to turn my lenses upon. Their story in brief: They bravely faced 9 years of trying to start a family amidst a flurry of miscarriages and, ultimately, the organization that housed Jen’s eggs lost them all when she was 41 years old. Rather than suing, Jen and Rick accepted donor eggs and went forward.

I was moved by this act of courage and headed out on a drive earlier this month to a part of Massachusetts where I had never been to spend some time in their warm company. I had originally meant to ask in person more about their story but was so involved in capturing them in this moment that the drama that led them to this place seemed to be an aside, which seems strange to say since most of us have never endured something so ongoing and unexpected. One day, perhaps, I will ask of their experience.

Meanwhile, without further adieu, I introduce the sisters Elyssa and Eva and their parents who have already proven come-hell-or-high-water. Much love to you four.

You may remember my posting of Lindsay and her giant belly back in December, on the first snow that we had. The twins, River and Wren, are now three weeks old and they, plus their parents, have been through a series of adventures particular to birth and twins. Suffice to say everyone is home and cozy now, phew. Two days ago I visited their farmhouse on a very cold, sunny day and in between holding/rocking/gently bouncing River while Lindsay tended to Wren, and in between nursings and tea, we made a series of shots of the newness of being in this world.

Lindsay turned their summer and fall harvest into baby food at the ready, when the time comes.

In August we visited friends who live in North Falmouth for the summer. They bring their four kids, bikes, chickens and aging dog. They grow lots of food in their garden. They spend most of their time outside and on the river that feeds into the mouth of a nearby harbor. It’s a bit like McCloskey’s “One Morning In Maine” but down on the Cape.

My kids’ ages fit right in with theirs and playful highlights included tire swinging, riding bikes and scooters en masse, and collecting all manner of sea creatures to investigate closely in a salt water tank over a few days before releasing. As a parting gift I photographed the Noordzij’s. They are such a unit that wrangling a group of six plus pets wasn’t a wrangle but an easy collaboration. These days I make it a personal challenge to create family portraits with everyone in the shot, to keep working it until I feel we’ve got something meaningful and representative. I come to the portraits with something in mind but I love seeing what emerges, usually a hybrid of preconceived and completely spontaneous.

I really enjoy photographing friends, particularly for that extra glimpse we get of each other in a slightly different context: Me in action with my gear and them doing their unique family dynamic thing. It can be a bit circus-like and I especially love it when parents think we probably didn’t get much in the way of pictures, that their kids were zooming all over and doing this and that; And then, later on during their presentation, to watch mom and dad’s faces and hear their laughter and wonderous surprise that, indeed, we rocked it. We really did. A family captured at this place and time. So here’s to a fun collaboration with Jocelyn, Mark and their energetic kids who have been making me chuckle heartily for the last bunch of years. Hard to choose just a few here…

Yes, I just returned from an inspired and invigorating trip. My sister, Jeni, and I had a week together while our husbands and kids rocked the homefronts. Our parents, wrapping up a special trip of their own, met us in Paris and we had several days all together. How rare to have that kind of grownup time when our worlds are already whirling on a daily basis juggling families, businesses, pets, life, and making sure there are tasty things to eat each day. I’ll admit that I have a future wistfulness of one day, in 25 years give or take, that my two kids will want to take a small leave of absence from their regular lives for a wee stint with me and Brian somewhere like this.

Of all the sophisticated wonder that is Paris, my two favorite things were walking for miles just looking and soaking it in, and the other was speaking that glorious language. My only wish for myself was to send my inner critic packing on her own trip far from where I was and so I could just speak the French I studied from 7th grade through college. And by not being such a perfectionist about getting that grammar all straight, I succeeded; It just flowed. Here are a few peeks of my week there…

On each side of the Pont Des Arts pedestrian bridge is filled with little padlocks, inscripted with indelible marker or carved with the names of lovers. In my several visits to this city I don’t think I’ve ever seen it–so it was worthy of two morning walks to seek it out. Apparently some people lock the locks and throw the keys into the Seine river below.

This actor couple above is on the set of a film shoot.

A delish buckwheat crepe with spinach and cheese, and Jeni peeking through the window.

And cider to go with it.

We spontaneously attended a show of fashion photographer Helmut Newton at the Grand Palais and came out in the beautiful early evening light on this bridge, the Pont Alexandre.

We sisters who happen to have the same two pairs of boots and who happened to pack them all; We maturely took turns.

In an organic market on Boulevard Raspail on Sunday mornings, we came upon two women selling cotton cloth “biologique” designed by one of the women, named Amandine. I bought a meter and a half for Jeni’s birthday who, I can tell, is about to turn into a sewing maven.

Halfway through our week it was nice to give our urban overloaded selves a break and we took a train to Vernon and met my dear French exchange family (a 27-year old friendship this is) and all spent a peaceful day together in Monet’s garden in Giverny. I rekindled my flame with Impressionism on this trip, a style I loved as a kid and teen but dismissed it in my twenties and early 30′s as not “edgy enough.” Whatever that decade or so was about for me, ha. But now seeing all the paintings in person–like Monet’s Nymphéas, hugely long and housed in delicate, naturally-lit oval rooms at L’Orangerie–took my breath away. And seeing Renoir paintings of just ordinary people doing ordinary things, like a mother and a child playing with toy horses, I appreciated these anew.

Tulips along the walking paths in Monet’s garden.

I’m delighted this image won an Honorable Mention at the upcoming Marblehead Arts Festival. I love this shot for many reasons. The main one though is the collaboration I had with my young friend Maeve. I asked her to bring something meaningful to the shoot, one of her favorite objects. She chose this blanket that was wrapped around her the day she was born. On the large print if you look closely you would be able to see some of the words embroidered around the edges. We were also in a meaningful location, in coastal New Hampshire, where her family memories are already many. Last summer and fall when I did  a lot of portrait shoots, I discovered how much I enjoyed photographing slightly older kids. We could really sink into making an image together that felt real.

Today, Odessa, who is 5, made a birthday card for her cousin Paprika, now also 5. Paprika is my sister’s eldest child and they all moved across the country in August and now live a short walk from us. Oh how we love having our family so close by now. Dessa described her drawing to me like this: “That’s Paprika with the curly hair and me with the straight hair and we’re wearing sunglasses [laughs] and that there in the middle is a heart. It’s exploding with love.”

So recently I said to Brian, “Love, you need to step it up this year with the camera. I want to be in some of the pictures. Just in case I croak early I want the kids to know they had a mother.” A couple of weeks ago he used my camera, rise and shine first thing in the morning. When I took a peek in the back of the viewfinder later I groaned, and I’ll tell you why in a sec. And then I just looked at them again tonight and had a different feeling, which was more in the peaceful category. Maybe that has something to do with the recent document that I’m part of this family in pictures, too.

I was surprised at my own reaction when I first saw the images. I did that thing that my clients sometimes do, typically the mamas over 40: I barely noticed the mood, the light, the everything, and instead went right to the details. My sunspots, and holy smokes I knew I had wrinkles but oh, and the unruly skin, and is that the makings of a double chin–while lying down? I was a little ashamed for thinking it, especially since I’m the first to council my photo subjects that that isn’t what we all see in the image, it’s more about the energy there, we’re our own worst critics, etc., etc. Let me just say it’s good for me to get in front of a camera once in a while and experience that little thing called empathy.

As much as I really want to say and believe that I truly don’t care about this stuff, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. But it’s not at all a melodramatic kind of thing, more of a quiet noticing, simply recognizing that heading towards 42 looks like this on me. It’s far from bad, and honestly I rather like my wrinkles and grey strands. It’s more that I don’t really feel this age, or what I thought this age would be. Or maybe it’s just that I’ll probably feel spry in body and a bit confused in mind about numbers and time moving so swiftly from here on out.

The next time my clients sigh and maybe disregard what I think of as a stunning image of them, I’ll let that space between their thoughts and mine linger a bit longer. I get it. But then I do want to reassure them.

Meanwhile, these pictures that Brian took grow on me. This is how we look in the morning, my kids and I. Playful, thoughtful, just happy to be together on this new day. Would I want to look untouseled and planned out, no. It wouldn’t show the us in us, and that is what I want my family to have a chance to peek back on down the road.

I love a mama who weighs the immediate needs of her ocean-loving kiddo over the consideration of keeping him dry (without a lick of back-up clothing in sight). Quinn and his one-track mind made for some chilly water shots in October that had me cracking up out loud while editing in the studio. I love love love my repeat clients and, on this day, getting to know Quinn after photographing his parents’ wedding a few years back.