Jonathan's Two Year Old Pictures

People always say that Louisville is a small town where everyone knows everyone else. I did not believe that for a long time--how can a city with a metropolitan population of well over half a million people be considered "small town"? However, I am starting to discover that it is the case.

I have lived in Louisville since 1996, moving here right after graduating from high school to go to college. In 1997, I took a job at a restaurant called the Bristol Bar and Grille as a hostess (in Kentucky, you have to be twenty and a day before you can be a server in a restaurant that serves liquor, thus my options were hostess or bus-person. I chose the former). I worked with some really awesome people, one of whom was named Jon. The turnover rate being what it is in the restaurant industry, Jon left after we'd worked together about six months.

So life obviously went on from there. Flash forward to October of 2005. Jonathan's school, like many in the area, has a photographer come in a few times a year to take pictures of the kids. I took Jonathan to have his pictures made first thing in the morning as he was prone to spit up at any moment during that period in his life. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Jon was the photographer. He looked exactly the same and apparently so do I as he and I immediately recognized each other. Turns out he and his wife own a photography company that handles over 50 day cares and preschools in the area. As you can see from my previous post (see "Picture Success"), the results are quite good.

Last year, I had Jonathan's one year pictures done at Sears on his actual birthday. They turned out pretty good, but I wanted something a bit more artistic for this year. I called Jon to see if he could do them. I had already taken off work on Jonathan's birthday and Jon was available then, so we met in Cherokee Park and shot photos for about an hour. Jonathan, true to form, was shy for about three seconds and then let his true self come out. I was thrilled with the pictures as I truly feel like they captured his personality.

This first one demonstrates one of the beautiful things about two-year-olds--they can actually follow directions!! We had Jonathan run away and then run back to us:



Jonathan really liked to run to me and I love this picture (despite my pasty white legs) because Jonathan just looks so happy:



And again, another example of Jonathan's new ability to take direction. Jon told him to wait behind the tree and he would "come get him":



This last one was completely spontaneous and turned out pretty awesome. Jon has in incredible knack for photographing young children:



It was hard to pick which ones I wanted, so it's nice that he gave me all of them on CD so I wouldn't live to later regret my print purchases!

Unrelated, thank you to everyone who sent well-wishes on my new job prospect. I have since undergone a telephone and an in-person interview, both of which I feel went well. I hope to know something this week and will, of course, keep everyone posted. Hope all of you had a great weekend!!