I’ve photographed the Leister family several times over the last few years. Santa sessions, family sessions, one of my favorite lifestyle newborn sessions ever (here), so I was excited to see them at the beach. They had planned a trip with college friends and wanted some group shots, which was a different spin on a typical “extended family” session. I loved it!

However, I was very carefully watching the forecast before this session. As often happens on summer evenings, storms were rolling in, and I was getting more and more nervous. Finally, we decided to start a little earlier than originally planned, and I’m so glad we did. When you’re working with this many little kids, it can be a bit unpredictable, and with the literal deadline of a storm, we were very limited on time. There were a few tears, but overall they did great, and, while it may have been one of my shortest sessions ever (I was standing with my back to the storm and saw their eyes get wide when they saw lightning), we still managed to get some great shots and capture some great memories!