If you’re always trying to be normal you’ll never know how amazing you can be.
-Maya Angelou
There’s a little secret I need to share. Sometimes I use Ryan Kate. Not in the ways you may assume. Not by over exposing her in my pictures or using her for promotional purposes – which I’ll admit it, I do. I use her on a much deeper level too.
I use her imagination. I let her run wild with her stories and I hardly ever correct her unless it’s something I think may harm her eventually. I let her tell stories of things that she’s convinced are real. Every once in awhile she flips a switch in me and my creative juices feed off of her. 
I guess, to be honest, it’s no different than getting inspiration from movies, magazines, life events, etc. but it does kind of feel wrong. I feel like I steal away her little thoughts. The only way I know how to keep them hers is by turning them into reality… or as real as we can imagine them to be.
In early October, she began this fascination with elephants. Well, not just any elephant, but baby elephants. One morning she woke up out of a dead sleep and told me that she was holding a baby elephant. She looked around the bed and asked where it went. I love this dream state that she stays in a couple of minutes after she wakes up. It’s almost like she gets to show me what she’s been dreaming. 
Well, here we are in December and her love has not faded. She’s asked for one from Santa, she’s asked for me to take her picture with one, and she’s picked out her yearly Christmas ornament which happened to be (drum roll, please) a baby elephant. 
If you haven’t noticed by now, there isn’t much I wouldn’t do for her. Pretty much anything and everything that she’s ever wanted – she’s gotten. She wanted a puppy; she got Daisy. She wanted a unicorn; she got a pink unicorn for her birthday. If I could figure out a way to get an elephant here for Christmas Day and still be able to feed her for the rest of her life, I would do it in a heartbeat. Some say I spoil her, but seeing her face light up and hearing her talk about it afterwards brings me as much joy as it does her.
So I’ve done the best I could do and I’ve made her dreams a little more tangible.
Since these pictures were composite, I decided to include a couple before and after pictures. 
Once we got to the river, I immediately started to get a little anxious. This may have been the most dangerous situation I have ever put her in. And that says A LOT. We pretty much just let Ryan Kate run wild. The picture I had in my head of what I wanted her to do meant that she would have to be in the water sitting or standing on one of the huge rocks that are scattered throughout the river. This meant that my mom (God bless her soul) would have to carry Ryan Kate to the middle of the river while I stood on the bank and then she would have to back far enough downstream to either be out of the picture or far enough back that I could photoshop her out. I opted to photoshop her out. I was way to nervous to let her get too far away from her. <–Please note that my mother was only about two feet away from Ryan Kate the whole time…
They were only in the water for about 3 minutes before my anxiety got the best of me and I asked mom to bring her back to the bank. I honestly could have done without the shots on the rocks. They ended up okay, but my favorite ones are of her on the banks climbing on the tree roots.
I wanted this session to just be of her playing. Just real life. I can’t help the fact that she ended up looking like a river fairy (minus the wings)! I had originally planned to find a vintage bathing suit to put her in, but I planned that way too late. I didn’t have enough time to get it shipped to us before I had to leave. Fortunately, I had this little, $6.99, white dress find from Burke’s in Ruston, LA. Obviously no shoes were required and I just let her hair air dry. Her little highlights are so pretty right now with her hair down. So I really wanted to capture that before her hair changes colors AGAIN. Fun fact for you… RK was born with jet black hair. Around 7 months it started to change to really light blonde and it is now starting to darken up again.
I absolutely love the way she looks so FREE. This girl is the definition of a free spirit. It would be a shame to not capture that. I think it’s so beautiful, but I may be a little bias.
If you’re wondering what she’s holding in the picture above. That’s rocks. The whole place is covered in pebbles. And she had a freaking field day throwing handfuls of them at me and my mom. It was ok at first.. nobody was getting hurt. 
The session only lasted about 15 minutes. After mom brought her back to the bank I had planned to get several more of her playing around on the trunks of the trees, but as soon as she got back she pick up another handful of rocks and threw it right in between my eyes. I had about a dime sized knot pop up immediately. That was IT for me. Like I said earlier, I always learn something at Ryan Kate’s sessions. I guess on this one I learned that even this photographer has her limits!
This entire session took about 4 hours to edit. The before/after picture below took about an hour and a half. Most of this time was deciding what to put in the water. I just luckily got this shot of her with her holding out her hand. More thank likely she is throwing rocks in the water. I had contemplated putting a gold-fish. I thought that the gold with the yellow-green water would look pretty. After playing around with that for a while I finally decided that wasn’t going to work. I just happened to be on the phone with my best friend, Casey, and asked her what else swims in the river that would look ok for RK to be feeding. She came up with the turtle. I’ve got two actions on this picture. One from 
Raising Ryan Kate 