Carrollton, Texas Portrait Session : The Blake Brothers
The Blake Brothers and I have known each other for a long time. Our connection goes way back. At the start of our mothers who became best friends years ago. So far back back that our mothers' friendship began as early as the days when they were starting to pass their boards to become a nurse in the United States. Flash forward, two families later, our mothers are still super close. And their kids are now all in their twenties. It's not their first time taking photos with me. When I was first started out photography, Larce, Laurence, and my brother were early subjects. I have lots of shots of them playing basketball. I'll have to go find those photos. On one cold Sunday morning, Larce (pictured left above) and Lawrence (pictured right above) came out to downtown Carrollton to brave it out for some photos for their own personal agendas - promo shots and college senior photos. Little did they know that I would force them both to take photos as brothers lol!
Laurence, the older of the two brothers, is often called Spike. It was his nickname growing up and I still call him that. I don't know why though lol! Recently finishing up his college years at the University of North Texas, Spike is a little more reserved and quiet. He's such a sweet guy who has a cat named Zig Zag - for some reason his mom calls his cat "Ming Ming" haha! This was our first time taking pictures together as young adults. It was different dynamic working with him compared to Larce. He often wears his glasses but for the shoot we opted out of it several times. We had fun catching up talking about things like dating and girlfriends/boyfriends. Those were topics we didn't chat about when we were younger. In fact, we didn't have much in common then but I'm glad that our relationship as "cousins" is getting better! What I really enjoyed about working with Spike this session was that his face has two sides. When he smiles he shows his young just got out of college innocence and when he doesn't smile it's a more adult side that's still being defined. I loved being able to pull that latter expression out of him because that's the stage he's entering. The unknown scary adulthood that we all dread and yet await in our early twenties. I'm looking forward to seeing him do great things in the medical field!
If you keep up with my Instagram, you'll probably see that Larce has graced my feed several times. We've done several photo collabs together. It's been really great to watch him take his music to a new serious level. He's popping up everywhere and what I love is that he's still this fresh-faced twenty something year old. It's been so nice to see him and I both pursuing creative journeys and supporting each other. Last Christmas our family had dinner at his parents' house and he came up and gave me this fist bump thing while saying "Hey saw you on @VSCO - that's awesome!" (You have no idea how dope I felt when he did that - I played it really cool too when he said it lol!). I love that he's shifting towards more experimental work and really pushing himself as an artist. No risk, no reward. Like past sessions, Larce has always allowed me creative freedom to direct his shoots. The other day he texted me he wanted to do another shoot at night - I'm game.
I'm always grateful to work with people that I grew up with. You don't appreciate those people until you're older to realize what kind of impact they have or will make in your life. Keep doing well Blake bros! I'm super proud of you both!!!