I got to thinking about Friday morning's senior... and I can't be for SURE... but I think it's true.
Other than my own children... there may be only one human walking the face of the Earth that's been to see me more over the past two decades than this girl.
She moved away to Nebraska about 7 years ago... and I haven't seen her nearly as much since then... but when the name "Tia" is thrown around at the studio... it can only mean one person.
THE Tia.
Oh, she has a last name, of course... but at 112 East Elm Street in Montour, Iowa... she needs no introduction.
Her mother, Brook, and grandmamma Linda, have been bringing this little beauty to me from the very beginning of my career... and honestly... I can't believe I'm actually doing her senior blog right now.
Heart... meet throat.
Little Tia may have been just over 1 year old when she visited for the first time... and it might have been a little bit of Montour's own version of Nightmare on Elm Street as we came away with nothing.
Zero, zip... nada.
#Epic Fail.
Undaunted, Linda and Brook came back... and back ...
And back.
In an unprecedented run, Tia became an annual lock to win her category in the Tiny Tots and Big Kids Shots contest we participated in back then. Some may have argued over the years that I'm just a monkey with a camera in my hand... and even a silly ape could have taken Tia's face to a title or two.
And I wouldn't have argued.
Time after time, little Tia took home top honors in her age category and it didn't seem to matter what I did. So what had an inauspicious beginning, certainly didn't stay that way.
Between the Tots contests, and three weddings that we did for the Eastman clan, it seemed like Tia was in front of my lens at LEAST twice a year...
And then she went and left.
Mama Brook and Papa Adam moved to Wayne, Nebraska several years back and I've only seen 'em once since... and when Brook emailed me this spring to set up our three-lettered gal for senior images... I was taken aback.
No... it CAN'T be time... can it?
Although I didn't see it first hand... Grandma Linda told me afterwards that Brook told her she might cry when she came into the studio last Friday thinking about how many years had past... and how many memories we had captured there over the last 16 years or so.
I argued a bit with my wife while looking over the images the other night... for some reason I still saw the little girl. When reality is... she's quite obviously a gorgeous young woman now.
It's called denial.
And I'm sure there's some of that in the Brook and Linda camps as well.
So, while I'm sure she didn't feel any sense of it... the author here did. If there is any sort of studio royalty that exists... she was in our presence last Friday and it was time to take her individual images one more time.
It was a real treat for me personally to catch up with Tia and her mom... and I told them as they left that they needed to leave quickly before I got emotional... Perhaps it had just hit me in yet another one of what has become an increasing run of benchmark moments in the last year or two... or maybe it was the fact that my little Tia was most likely being photographed individually for the very last time at Stewart Photography.
If so.... it's been a amazing run, young lady.
Thanks for all the memories.
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