It was a perfect Sunday evening. Warm, but not too hot. A slight breeze taking the edge off the humidity. I hadn’t really spent a Sunday evening in downtown Wilmington before, much less as a photographer, but I was thrilled at the lazy, fun atmosphere I found.
At the heart of downtown Wilmington, there’s an ice cream shop. The smell of freshly-made waffle cones wafts out the front door, and I stop to peer in the window and watch the waffles being cooked and formed into cones right inside the window. It’s the perfect place for a Sunday afternoon stroll.
And here I am to capture it all. The excited faces, the agonizing moments spent perusing the many, many flavor choices and narrowing it down to *just one* scoop, the drips and mess and stained lips, the mothering that saves the ice cream from sliding right off the cone into a melted mess on the ground. All of it.
My goal as a lifestyle documentary photographer is to capture all of these memories, to tell the story of the day, so when you look at this series of images, it brings you back to that moment, the flavor of the ice cream, the feel of that warm hug, the joy of these precious fleeting days. I’m convinced that when it’s all said and done, it’s the normal, mundane moments that really make the memories.
Don’t get me wrong. I love hair fixed and faces clean and happy smiles just as much as you do. But what I’m really looking for here are those little details that won’t be here years from now. The curly wisp of hair that keeps falling into her eyes. The skinned knees and sunburnt faces. The way baby girl holds tight to Daddy’s hand. The stuff that pulls you right into that whirling vortex of memories.
Nicole is a custom family photographer in Wilmington, NC.