This gorgeous five-year-old and her little brother had a big time as the sun set behind Sullivans Island. I first met their parents when I worked at the aquarium — their dad is a fisherman who heads way offshore on weeklong trips to bring back vermilion snapper, grouper and other deep-sea bounty to sell to Charleston’s best restaurants. In fact, we were glad to have him along as assistant child-wrangler since he was heading out to sea at 4am the next day! The cute siblings are so at ease on the sandy shore. They did a great job working with me in their portrait ensembles knowing their mama had bathing suits for them to slip into after the photo session.

Her Mom was eager to schedule a portrait session before her daughter lost her first tooth. It was pretty loose — maybe the tooth fairy has visited already! I still have several shots I’m editing, but this one takes my breath away in both color and black-and-white, so I’m sharing two versions.

Oh, and break out the Kleenex. I dug through the archives to find one I snapped in ’06 when I took some family pics to accompany a magazine article. Not that moms need any reminder of how time flies, but I loved this shot then, and it’s pretty touching to see how she’s grown up so far!

Once we completed our session and the kids were splashing around, I headed to meet friends and hubby to celebrate a birthday. But I made one last stop before the restaurant since the sunset was shaping up to be a stunner!