I recently got to photograph a really awesome family at the Eastern State Penitentiary. It was great!! I have known the mom, Cari, for…. well, basically my whole life. Her and her 2 brothers were mine & my siblings first friends. We grew up only 7 houses away from each other on a row home block…. which, to all you suburbanites, basically means right next door. 🙂
We did everything together it seems and I have some really great memories from those times. Cari is 3 years older than I am and so, officially, she was really my sister’s friend. Even still, I tagged along everywhere just like any annoying little sister. One memory that stands out is when I begged to go to Cari’s birthday party. Everything was going great until her parents went upstairs. Suddenly the lights went off and scary movies were playing. I even remember getting locked into a hallway with a boy for “7 minutes in heaven”. It was more like 7 minutes of AWKWARD!! After that I decided that I wasn’t quite ready to grow up just yet. I was still happy climbing trees and playing with bugs (I think I still am).
Here are a couple of photos of us and some of our siblings….
As for the portrait session, it was great! Chad (the dad) had the great idea of photographing at the Eastern State Penitentiary, a location that I have always been fond of for it’s history and peeling paint/ textured walls. Jordyn & Luke (the adorable kiddos) were great and I think that they had a lot of fun exploring this creepy space. Towards the end of our time there we were told that we actually weren’t allowed to photograph there. Go figure! Well, at least we got some portraits in before we were reprimanded.
It was great catching up with Cari and photographing her family. It’s always amazing to see someone from your childhood. It’s a great reminder of where you came from and how time has passed. It’s funny, we used to pretend we were married with kids….
There is certainly an irony to them being so happy in a penitentiary…. but I just couldn’t get them to stop smiling. 🙂
