Family of Seven?! (Asheville Photographer)

As a photographer, I sometimes get the call from a hesitant mom who, after asking the basics for a family session, follows it up with, “so…I have a lot of kids. Can you handle a lot of kids?” And if I listen hard enough, I could possibly make out a desperate, “Please?!!!” coming from her end.

Okay, so the mom below didn’t do that exactly, but she did call and immediately told me she had a big family, a big family with LOTS of little ones. Five kids, aged 10 and under, to be exact.

And two were twins. Three-year-old twins. Three-year-old boy twins. Is your heart racing?

So, I calmly assured her I was more than capable of tackling her large crew and, in fact, welcomed the challenge. Bring. It. On.

For starters, the parents were awesome. How can you not be with five kids? They were friendly and super laid-back even though their beautiful mountain home sat on a steep hill with rocky drop-offs on more than one side. Give me just one child at a house with lofty heights and I’m a sweaty mess. But this mom with five was chill. The kids knew the boundaries and played hard within them. Simple as that.

(Quick side note: With large groups of little ones, a successful session involves shooting fast, letting them move, and moving right with them. The hardest part is usually at the end as you convince a worried mom that you did actually get good shots amid the chaos. They’re always happily surprised when they see the final images.)

During this session, the super cool parents casually stood to the side smiling at the mayhem. At the end, the mom seemed most impressed that the session actually lasted a full hour. (She said a previous photographer made it 10 minutes and gave up. Amateur.)

So here are some of the more active images from the day. The posed ones just aren’t as fun!

All together for but a brief moment…