May 19 2026 | By: Always Remember Photography
She was just sitting there when they walked by.
Three fuzzy yellow ducklings, completely unbothered, parading past like she wasn’t even there. And the look on her face — that wide-eyed, where-did-you-come-from kind of surprise — is the sort of expression you can never ask a child to give you.
You simply have to be ready for it.
We spent a long while with the baby ducks. She watched them tumble from a wooden barrel. She fed them from her little tin pail in the open field. She knelt along the wildflower field watching them like they were the most important thing in the world.
For a little while, they were.
But ducks are small, and the property is wide, and eventually they wandered off to do what ducks do.
And that is when the session became something quieter.
She found one of my Forever Bears waiting in the wildflower field. She picked him up as she said her goodbyes to the ducklings, and just like that, she wandered off into the flowers with him tucked under her arm.
No ducks. Just a little girl and a teddy bear.
Near the end of the evening, we made our way back toward the house where I had set out a basket of freshly cut rhododendrons. Out of everything we did that day, this was the only moment I actually posed.
I asked her to pretend she was sleeping. Just that.
She did the rest.
Both portraits are among my favorites from the entire session — the one just before, and the one after. Which one is yours?
These ducks have one more week with us. But honestly, every session I create here feels a little like this one — like somebody left a storybook open and a child just walked into it.
If you're ready to create something like this for your family, I'd love to hear from you. [Forever Bear Storybook Sessions] and [Creek Sessions] are both booking now — or reach out and we'll create something all your own.