Christmas came a day early for the Brooks family because they got new family photos.

I offered to shoot the neighbors family photos this year as my Christmas presents to them. I told them all, no strings attached. I simply wanted to give them a current image of their families.

The Brooks jumped on this, they asked me what day I wanted to do this on, what time, want what they should wear. I let them know I wanted to shoot Christmas Eve, after noon, and this is all about you in terms of what you wear. If they wanted formal, go formal, want relaxed, dress down, you let me know how you want me to capture you.

The day came and they showed up in matching METALLICA attire, per their daughters wishes. They looked awesome. Their daughter grew up listening to Metallica from the time she was developing in the womb to the age she is today, she makes her daddy very proud, and she made him ecstatic with her choice of dress that day.

Shooting them was a breeze. In about a twenty-five-minute session I was able to capture their family portrait, Images of Jamie and Eve as the lovely couple they are, and Luna even wondering if she could go and get her cats to make some photos with them. I said “Sure!” After all, everything was set up and ready to go.

They all came back with Ice (Russian Blue) and Ktulu (black & white… named after the call of Ktulu from Ride the Lightning for all you Metallica die hards) and we got to work. Ktulu was more interested in exploring than he was with posing, so that left the moment up to Ice and Luna. Ice is Luna’s baby oddly enough and being able to capture him and his little mom together was darling.

The next day, we ate Christmas dinner together and I showed them the photos from our session. They lite up and I even offered to print some that night for the final present to them. The joy I got from them was my present from them.

The rest of the neighbors had conflicting schedules and I did offer to reschedule them and a time that worked best for them, but for the Brooks, Christmas was complete.