Session of the Month - October 2023 — Chelsea May Photography

November 10, 2023

Well geesh. There I was, all bragging that I did last month’s post early and now here I am late for October’s post. BUT I’m hoping you all forgive me because this week has been absolutely insane between the quarter ending at school, parent-teacher conferences that kept me at school until 8 last night, and my husband traveling for work this week.

October’s session of the month was actually my first session of the month… it literally took place the evening of October 1st. This session was also a little different because even going into it, I knew I wasn’t going to be required to do any editing. Silly me should have known better that I was going to WANT to edit anyway.

This gorgeous mama (Melissa) and I met back in summer of 2012 when we were both starting our first years teaching in the Stevens Point School District. We weren’t ever super close, but even after she decided to stop teaching full-time, she would still sub from time to time. After awhile, she even scaled back on that to stay at home with her babies.

Then comes this spring. We both were signed up for a day-long educational workshop with a local photographer that we both know. We were able to catch up, which was really nice. Another interesting tidbit was the difference in where we were at in our photography careers. She was just starting out and I was a decade in just looking for a way to add an edge to my business.

Just a few weeks later, a wedding couple of mine very kindly allowed her to shadow me to see what it was like to photograph a wedding. We had a blast together and she was even able to take some photos of her own to see what shooting a wedding entailed.

Fast forward another month. Normally, my hubby is my second shooter for weddings, but there were two this year that I knew he wasn’t going to be able to do because of prior commitments. I had another photographer lined up for several months to help me with the first of the weddings, but she unfortunately injured her knee a few days beforehand. I was definitely in a bind at that point, but realized how perfect it would be to bring Melissa along as my second shooter… and man did she NOT disappoint! She was so great that I also brought her along to the other wedding my husband couldn’t help with. It’s been so fantastic working with her!

One thing we decided to do was swap family photo sessions. She takes my photos, I take hers, then we just hand the SD cards over so we edit our own stuff. It works really well!

The evening of October 1 brought literally perfect weather. Not too hot, not too cold. We ventured down to the pond in my neighborhood and I took photos of her with her adorable family.

The lighting and the sunset made this session even more perfect. I’m not exaggerating when I say I snapped that shutter over 700 times in about 45 minutes. I knew that even thought I didn’t HAVE to edit these photos, I was most certainly going to WANT to edit them. Unfortunately I had to wait a few weeks before I could even look at them because October is always my busiest month, but it was quite the treat to go through them once things started to calm down a little bit.