The T Family | Squirrel Island Maine Family Photographer

If you follow my blog regularly (or if you live in New England and have looked out your window at all this summer), you’ll know this has been a challenging summer in regards to the weather. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say this is the MOST challenging weather summer I have had in my twelve years as a professional photographer. Yet, looking back at my July photos, somehow we’ve made it work, and the story of the “T” Family’s island session is a story of it’s own in the craziness of July weather. For months I had been looking forward to traveling to Squirrel Island off the coast of Boothbay to meet up with this crew. I’m always up for an adventure (provided it doesn’t require heights, haha!), and absolutely love this family who I’ve been lucky enough to work with before. On the night of our session, the forecast called for the possibility of storms, but we decided to go for it. After driving almost an hour in torrential rain, and with the forecast calling for an 86% chance of storms on the island at shoot time, we decided to call it in the interest of both boat safety and staying dry. When I returned home an hour later, the sun was shining at my house…and on Squirrel Island – and – real talk time – after a tough few weeks navigating an ever-changing forecast, I shed a few tears and drowned myself in a burrito bowl and many episodes of Virgin River.

They say though, that good things come to those who wait, and we decided to try again a few days later before the crew left the island. Once again, the forecast called for storms, but we decided to go for it no matter what. I enjoyed a gorgeous ferry ride from Boothbay Harbor to the island, but with storm clouds building behind me as I went. When I got to the island, the sky began to rumble, and so we quickly headed to the spot where Nancy and Bruce wanted to do the photos, took as many as we could, and then made it back to their house just in time for the skies to open up. Keep reading – because here’s where it gets really good: After spending some time at the house waiting out the storm (many thanks to this family for being so hospitable with me!), everyone gathered to walk me to the ferry, and as we exited the property, we noticed a stunning rainbow overlooking the exact spot where we just took photos. To make it even better, as we were walking to the ferry, we were treated to the most magnificent sunset, which was just the perfect end to quite a process making these photos happen.

I can’t say enough wonderful things about the T Family and Squirrel Island. This was a night I most definitely will not forget, and Squirrel Island is a place I most definitely intend to return to – it is magical, and so was my time with this wonderfully sweet group of people. Here are my many favorites from our evening that was so worth the wait.