“Elizabeth captured my girl’s personality and is so patient and sweet when working with her.” -Candice

As many followers of mine will now, my daughter Grace has Rett syndrome. Because of this, photographing kiddos with special needs has become kindof a thing. Through photographing my own kid, I learned and improvised methods and ways of photographing her to capture the real her and not her disability.

Rett syndrome traps little girls inside their bodies. Their bodies are often moving very quickly…their hands are flying around and they have tremors, seizures and add to that the fact they’re in an unusual situation with a stranger (me) and getting eye contact and a calm demeanor might be impossible. Except that I’m a pro at photographing kids with Rett now. And 90% of the time, I’m able to achieve what I came for: eye contact right down the barrel of my lens. And the expressions their parents know as “the real them”.

Because I live in Florida, I get to meet a lot of old and new Rett families every February when they come through for the Disney Princess Half Marathon. It’s a sort of reunion event so even people who don’t run (like me!) still enjoy hooking up with other Rett parents.

Evie’s family are from Jacksonville. In fact, her mom is a bit of a celeb in the Rett blogging world (this is her). This is my second time photographing her – the first being a couple years ago. She’s gone through some big life changes since…like spinal surgery for severe scoliosis. So it was a pleasure getting to connect with them again and photograph my little buddy Evie.