65/365 At a turning point

I didn't grow up in a family that had professional portraits done for every milestone, every year, every event in our lives. (Funny then, isn't it, that I ended up developing an interest in photography?)

A couple examples:

I believe we have one -- only one -- in-studio portrait of the four of us. And why did we get it? The township fire department offered a free sitting in exchange for a donation. Our best family photo was actually a spontaneous one when my brother had his senior photos done. We were all outside watching, then the photographer grouped us all together -- all of us in t-shirts, me with damp hair after a recent haircut, in the field -- and it's great. It looks like us.

Case #2: Chase and I had photos done of the two of us for my parents for Christmas when I was a freshman in college. It was the first professional photos we'd had of the two of us since we were probably 5 and 2 years old.

So when one of my girlfriends suggested ages ago that we have photos done of our group together, I wasn't overly excited. But I knew I needed to play along.

She arranged it for today. And the more I thought about it, the more I hopped on board with the idea. There are eight of us that regularly get together. We met when we were 500 Festival Princesses in 2005 and are now an eclectic group of young women, each with a different career and set of ambitions.

And now we're at a turning point. Kristina just earned her Master's and is hoping to land a job in the D.C. area. Courtney got a new job and is moving out of state in the next few weeks. And Kristin will be moving to NYC to earn her Master's from NYU in August. So who knows when we'll all be here, together, again?

I may not have been completely sold on the notion at the beginning, but they won me over in the end.

Camera: Canon Rebel DSLR on Program setting; 1/125s, f/8.0 at ISO 100 in natural sunlight at approximately 4:00 p.m.