Helen Joy’s Photography Blog

Helen Joy George 9/10/15 Helen Joy George 9/10/15

sparrow and his mama | in the queen anne's lace

I've wanted a little girl ever since I could remember. In high school I would save little outfits and dresses I found at thrift stores in my hope chest, dreaming of one day have a daughter to dress in them. For the longest time I would see the sweeping fields of feminine queen anne's lace during the summers and dream of one day taking yearly pictures with a little girl in them.

After 2 boys and 4 miscarriages I had completely given up hope of having a little girl. So much so that the long treasured clothing had been doled out to friends and family for their daughters. And then my rainbow girl came, a huge gift of love from God. She was the beginning of my healing and my seeing God as a loving father who doesn't want to teach me a lesson but who wants to bless my heart with my Lucy Miller girl.

Last year I had my sister snap a few pictures of us in the queen's anne lace, but the getting up and down in the summer heat to change settings and see what she had captured completely ruined the experience I wanted to have. So this year, Lucy Miller's second summer, I asked my beautiful, talented friend Amanda to photograph us. Amanda is not only a gifted artist she is a mother that knows the feeling of holding a long awaited gift. Her son Sparrow was born after Amanda suffered 3 miscarriages.

So one evening between all the stuff of life (while my boys ate take out in the car and watched a movie on the way to a birthday party) we photographed our grateful love with our babies and the results are magic.

I will forever treasure the images she captured and the feeling of being there in my dream field with my dream girl.

^^Photos by Green Shack Studios^^

Truly these next photos only took 10 minutes or so but their love, their LOVE is so sweet! I just can't stand how much I love these.

www.helenjoy.com

Helen Joy George 9/8/15 Helen Joy George 9/8/15

christopher + emily | hickory nut forest

“Seeds germinate in soft soil. I plant my seed of love in your weaknesses, not your strengths.”

- Avatar Meher Baba

It's no secret that hands on, intimate weddings are my jam. I love them and truly, I feel like that's how a wedding should feel. They should feel like you're being embraced by all of those closest to you, either by pie baking or dress fluffing or a thousand other things that loved ones love to do on your wedding day. I find a lot of weddings are like shows that everyone shows up to with anxiety of things not being perfect and there is a detachment emotionally between people when that happens.

I met Emily several years ago at a doula training. She is just completely genuine and thoughtful and totally the type of person that you would want to have along side of you while giving birth. Emily was almost my labor doula with my 3rd baby. 2 of my 3 prodromal labor hospital runs she was there talking to me on the phone, sharing in my excitement or swinging by the hospital room to adjust my hips. Emily wasn't there for my actual active labor, but just as I was being wheeled in for a very unexpected c section after more than a day of labor, Emily came to relieve my labor doula and went into the OR with me. Her presence was just like her wedding, a warm, sweet, genuine embrace. She took pictures for me, held my hand, rubbed my temples with oil and laughed and cried with us as we brought our baby girl into the world. So Emily is kind of like family to me and I will always treasure her.

I was honored to be able to be there for her on her wedding day and capture the sweet love she and Christopher have for each other.

They were married at Laughing Waters Retreat Center in Hickory Nut Forest, NC. When I pulled up I was in love. Everyone was cheerfully bustling around decorating and spreading buckets of wildflowers all over the grounds. Special women in their lives were dropping off desserts and laughing as they set up. Mama's were nursing babies and children were everywhere. It just felt so very warm and nice.

They were married in a Jewish ceremony with lots of thoughtful traditions. The whole ceremony started with a traditional Mexican blessing. My very favorite part of the ceremony was hearing person after person stand up and share a blessing or advice about marriage, from deep and beautiful poetry to jokes about figuring out who washes the dishes, it was all so encouraging and it just felt so uplifting to hear such positive words in a culture and time when there aren't a whole lot of positives being said about long term relationships.

Emily and Christopher had set aside some special time after the ceremony to go right into doing pictures of just them. It honestly felt as intimate as a birth as they whispered and giggled and recounted their experience of the morning. They were totally up for taking off shoes and climbing river rocks to get the shot and those candids of them are some of my very favorites.

Christopher and Emily, thank you both for letting me be there and for the honor of telling your story through photos.

www.helenjoy.com

Helen Joy George 8/26/15 Helen Joy George 8/26/15

married in the clouds | michael and jill`

On the 4th of July, on a beautiful cool morning at Ceasar’s Head State Park, Michael married Jill and their families joined together as one. Jill used to come to Ceasar's Head as a child with her father, they scattered his ashes there after he passed away, Michael proposed to her there and so this was the exact spot that they wanted to get married.

These two have a quiet, strong love.

I’ve been photographing Jill and her extended family for years and last summer she had an extra sparkle in her eyes and her cheeks were youthful with a happy blush and then I met Michael and it all made sense. Michael is strong and protective and the way he wraps Jill in his arms makes me just sigh with happiness.

The day of the wedding was perfect. This overlook is usually crowded and I was worried that tourists and the hot weather would make it hard to photograph well and even then I was wondering how they would pull it off. But Ceasar’s Head was in the clouds that morning and a dewy drizzle covered everything in the most beautiful and sparkling haze. The groom and his men wore kilts and I swore we could have been in the highlands somewhere. It was straight out of a fairy tale.

One thing I loved about Jill was her unfaltering joy as she waited to walk down the aisle. It was raining on her wedding day and she was not just dealing with it, she was dancing!

For a few seconds after they were declared husband and wife, the clouds parted and you could see the outline of the mountains. And then the beautiful fog rolled right back in as if it was a soft embrace around the day.