I’m gonna admit it. I’m a touch sad. Happy, of course, yes. But also, a little sad.
It’s just bittersweet to reach this noteworthy milestone with these guys.
I’m trying to remember when I just KNEW I loved this family. Was it five minutes in? Ten? 🤔 It was quick. I’ll tell you that.
It was 2020, and as you might remember, things were a little wonky. It didn’t seem to matter. Even with pandemic mitigations in place, the connection forged.
In the nearly five years since, I’ve had the absolute pleasure of watching and documenting this awesome family’s growth. From two parents with a teeny two-week-old to a full-throttle family of four, a toddler and a preschooler exuding transformational energy daily! It’s been amazing.
There are too many beautiful/hilarious/poignant/awe-inspiring moments to recount, but here’s one:
After Sawyer needed surgery to separate the fused plates in his little baby noggin, he needed a helmet. (Can you imagine how his parents felt, going through that?)
Well, in true Hatch McDonald style, he absolutely ROCKED that look. He grew out a fluffy shock of hair and proudly sported a “Helmet Hair, Don’t Care” onesie.
Check out 6 month old Sawyer rocking his helmet with style!☝🏻
At his 12-month session, he happily “graduated” from that chapter. And he showed us how he felt about it by walking up to his helmet and hurling it to the ground with a flourish and a celebratory chortle! I think we all had tears streaming down our cheeks with laughter.
It was perfect. Just like so many moments with this incredible family.
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
This wonderful family became dear friends after I photographed Kristen pregnant with Stephen 18 years ago. Over the years, there have been so many laughs, tears, hugs, hikes, and, of course, portraits. I treasure their friendship.
In June of 2023, something happened that no one saw coming.
Stephen was working out with his Flag High football teammates. Feeling his right arm locking up, he re-racked the 145-pound weights and sat down on the bench to see if he could revive it.
In his mind, he remembers saying, “I need some help.”
He doubts now that those words actually left his mouth.
Until that moment, there were zero symptoms.
The tonic-clonic seizure (previously called Gran Mal) lasted 3.5 looong minutes. About 1.5 minutes in, he became aware of his surroundings and could hear but couldn’t speak.
The first of many scary experiences.
After being flown to Phoenix and hours of tests that tried their stamina and strained their emotions, Kristen found herself alone with the news that her teenage son had a brain tumor that required surgery.
“Are you sure it’s not something else?” she asked, desperately hoping for better news.
After a 3-hour brain biopsy surgery a few days later, they had to wait a month for results. It was a surprise to see 16-year-old Stephen’s brain cancer diagnosis – something which usually strikes adults 45-65.
Brain surgery lasted longer than expected. Stephen awoke after 9 hours to the reality of a dumbfounding complication. The electrodes attached to his tongue to monitor him while under had caused an alarming swelling of his tongue. Needing a breathing tube and a feeding tube for nearly a month was an outcome “nobody prepared us for.”
There was no treatment, only frustration and pain.
He started chemo and radiation while still recovering from the damage to his mouth, traveling back and forth between Phoenix area hospitals by ambulance for the punishing treatment.
With lots of help, he’s completed a year of chemotherapy in Flagstaff, overcome partial paralysis, and relearned how to walk, talk, write, eat, throw a football, and lift weights. He missed most of this junior year and pushed through a myriad of challenges to make it up while still undergoing chemo.
His hard work is paying off. His scans now look good, and there is reason for optimism. He’ll even graduate on time – a Herculean effort.
Remarkably, despite everything he’s endured, he attended almost every one of his teammates’ football games, even when that meant traveling long distances directly from radiation treatment.
Kristen applied to the Make-A-Wish program after she was advised of the better outcomes recipients experience. When she told Stephen, he was angry, feeling that others deserved it more.
He ultimately reached a decision. “Mom, it can’t be all about me. What I really want is to do good for others, to do something bigger than myself.”
“I figured it out. I want to help reduce brain injuries for my Flag High teammates.”
I asked where the idea came from. “All my concussions,” he replies, laughing.
So, at 16, Stephen asked the Make-a-Wish Foundation to replace the 11 – 12-year-old helmets for each of his teammates. The surprise gifts were announced on August 3 in an emotional, heartwarming ceremony.
He got to wear one, too, although he’s gone from playing just about every position to Place-holding – which puts his recovering body at the smallest amount of risk.
Click though Stephen’s images in the gallery above. ☝🏻
He’s been through so much, yet he remains kind, thoughtful, funny, and sweet. He leads by example. It’s obvious in the way his teammates cheer, support, and show up for him.
Now, you can find him crushing his senior year of high school, getting ready to graduate in May, leaving behind the astonishing challenges of the last year and a half.
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
The most frustrating thing about making senior portraits with Wyatt? Narrowing them down afterward. With an easy smile and a natural grace, he’s really good at being in front of the camera. He’s also a super nice guy.
As I photographed him, I sometimes saw flashes of his cousins’ faces, many of whom I’ve photographed over the years. His awesome mom, Lainie, hung back, letting him make his own choices, occasionally offering a great suggestion here or there.
Wyatt’s roots are intertwined with this place, nestled north of the peaks. It’s where he grew up, rode motorcycles, skied the nearby slopes, and tromped through meadows and forests. So, our session there felt like a kind of homecoming.
He brought two of the three (!) vehicles he owns and maintains. When you add the motorcycles and skis, we had a lot to work with. It made it easy to tell the story of some of his many interests during high school. I’m glad we were able to sneak this in. Not long after our session, he graduated and headed off to college to start his next chapter.
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
After baby Gwendolyn’s unexpected arrival at 34 weeks, Alex and Colleen found themselves spending many worrying hours sitting next to a newborn isolate in the Special Care Nursery.
More than a decade ago, after one of our clients had spent 72 anxious days with her newborn being cared for there, we decided to donate a gallery of portraits of “graduates” to adorn the walls there. After some initial confusion about the nature of our proposal, the clinical manager happily accepted our offer. 🙂
We set about photographing these now healthy and thriving ‘big kids’ who had spent the first days of their postpartum lives in the Special Care Nursery. The portraits showed these kids dancing, laughing, wearing martial arts or gymnastics uniforms, showing off how beautifully they’d overcome a rough start.
Our goal was to give hope to those worried parents during a fraught chapter. “Here’s what the future can look like for your baby, too.”
Alex and Colleen reflected that looking at those portraits had given them courage during their daughter’s time in the SCN, just as we’d hoped. They dreamed of having Gwendolyn’s portrait adorn the walls to offer that optimism to others.
Keiji and I volunteered to donate a wall portrait of her on their behalf. Besides, we were overdue to check on our previous donations and see if anything needed to be refreshed.
When we reached out to the current clinical manager, Jeanne, she couldn’t have been nicer. She welcomed us to tour the SCN, and our hearts warmed to see that the staff had added MANY new portraits of graduates in the intervening years. Jeanne had even added a plaque under each child’s portrait to indicate how long they’d stayed. It was lovely to see.
We decided to refresh one of our portraits, which had become damaged over the years, and collaborated on where the new addition of Gwendolyn’s portrait should live.
Recently, we went back with Colleen to see her daughter’s healthy, beautiful face on the walls. It was a joyful day, a tangible manifestation of Gwendolyn’s miraculous progress.
The whole project was a labor of love – a wonderful reminder of children’s resiliency and the Special Care Nursery staff’s essential work to help Flagstaff’s families.
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
It’s not every teenager who can advise you about how to revive a person suffering from a fentanyl overdose, but Sydney can.
In fact, it is one of the many things she volunteers to do and teach. I found myself asking her questions about this and her many other volunteer outreach activities, during her senior photo session.
Without her ever saying it, here’s what I’ve learned: She’s here to quietly, humbly make the world better than she found it. I love that about her.
Besides her various volunteering activities, she does a spot-on fake evil laugh, loves her mochas from Dutch Bros, and will climb a tree when asked without complaint.
She told me she loves vibrant sunsets, especially when viewed from Snowbowl, and I crossed my fingers that our session day would deliver her wish.
As the day came to a close, the mountains of northern Arizona stretched out below us, glowing in the setting sun behind illuminated clouds saturated with color. It was nothing short of glorious.
It was a well-deserved feat of nature for my outstanding subject.
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
Here’s my holiday wish. When you are gathering with the people you love over the holidays, please, please take pictures, especially of those older family members. When the menorah is put away, the tree is on the curb, the food eaten, presents opened, what you’ll be left with is (hopefully) warm memories. Years from now, those memories will be a lot less fuzzy if you have some pictures to remind you of them.
My Random Tips for Holiday Pictures:
Let’s be candid. No need to annoy everyone by making them stop to look at the camera and yell “Cheese!” You’ll be transported back to the moment better later if the subjects were “in the moment” when you took the picture.
Yes, you too. Make sure you are actually in some of the pictures. I recently noticed that of all the images of our family decorating the tree over the years, I wasn’t in one of them! It’s like I wasn’t there. It was time to hand over the camera for a change. I don’t want my kids and grandkids to be sitting together looking at these pictures later and wondering “Where was grandma?”
Perfect is the enemy of the good. You don’t need perfect hair or even a clean house. Come as you are. If you wait for the perfect moment, you’ll likely miss the opportunity altogether. This is the last portrait I made of my great aunt Louise. We were at a family gathering and I had just given her a print of herself as a young woman. I remember thinking “I wish I had asked her to move into a nicer chair.” Now that she’s gone, I have a clear memory of her happily sitting in that little lawn chair lakeside. It doesn’t matter that it’s not perfect. I’m just so grateful to have this.
Get ready! What do you have to do right now to be ready? Charge your phone battery, and backup your phone, to clear off the old images, making room for new ones. Learn how to use that new “real” camera. If you do these things now, it’ll be easy to record those memories when the time comes.
I hope this is a helpful reminder. I wish you a peaceful and fun holiday season!
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
I’ve been photographing them for years, and I adore them. This time, Paxton and his mom, Amy, were breezing back through Flagstaff from their home in Missouri en route to a Grand Canyon river trip. Amy wanted to document this moment, with good reason.
In the three years since I last saw and photographed him, Paxton had morphed from a cute 11 year old kid into a full-on teenager, yet hadn’t lost any of his charm or kindness. It’s just that now, he’s a badass lacrosse player. Thank goodness he can still do the eyebrow trick and has retained his fantastic laugh.
His favorite food can be found at Pita Pit in Flagstaff. Naturally, they made a stop there before coming to the studio. Like the last location family session I had with them, we dodged some raindrops and got very lucky with clouds, giving us lovely light in our studio courtyard. 🙂
Many people procrastinate family portraits between the ages of 5 and 17. I hear the regret in parents’ voices when they talk about this later, as their kids are getting ready to launch.
I wish everyone would be more like Amy and cherish each stage of their kids’ lives, taking time to document and savor them. She knows on a bone-deep level that all of these moments are fleeting. She sees her kids deeply, savoring what makes them unique and loving them fiercely.
I’m the lucky photographer who gets to make the art that helps her hold onto these ever-changing moments.
Because we were back in the studio again for this session, we decided to pay homage to Paxton’s 5 year old portraits. Check out the before and afters! 👇🏻
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
Ten years ago this month, something extraordinary happened.
We had been operating KDI Photography out of our home studio for years but had REALLY outgrown it. It was time to move on up! We took out some loans and renovated a lovely building on Humphreys Street.
After what seemed like an eternity, it was finally ready! We did some of the work ourselves, including moving everything. (Check out two of our cute movers in the rig below. 😀)
We actually didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, in positive ways and challenging ones. We had incredible buoying support from our amazing friends, family, and community. There were quite a few setbacks, too. If you’ve ever found yourself owning a 100-year-old building, you know what I’m talking about!
If we could go back in time, would we do it again? ABSOLUTELY. We love this place, especially the heartwarming memories and meaningful art that has been created here.
We get to work inside a building and within a community that we adore. Thank you to the friends, supporters, KDI clients, and Flagstaff community, for making this dream come true!
Want to see some of our early portraits from that studio in the garage? Check them outHERE.
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
I have this very clear picture of Kyra in my mind, aged four and already moving fast. Maybe she was predisposed to be a soccer player when she grew up because she’s required to be fast now! I can see how she must be a great leader as a captain of her team.
Kyra is drawn to water and marine biology, so Kyra, her mom, Kym, and I headed for the Arizona version of “marine.” her senior portrait session, we got beyond the rain and were rewarded with the gorgeous light.
Sometimes, my clients have difficulty relaxing and trusting me about the weather, but fortunately, Kym and Kyra had faith. The day was unique and unforgettable. The lake had more water and the most stunning flowers I’ve ever seen!
We spent some time wrangling one very chill and one very not chill puppy, documenting both the sweetness and the personality. Kyra made it all enjoyable by being a really fun subject.
I’ve relished my time with her in this chapter. She is kind, present, engaging, and has an awesome giggle. Just like when she was little, you can see that she is a thinker. Whenever she lands for her next chapter, they will be lucky to have her.
Kristen Dacey Iwai of KDI Photography is a full-time professional portrait photographer based in Flagstaff, Arizona with decades of experience. Making portraits of families, pregnancy, newborns, babies, children, and high school seniors in her downtown studio and on location, she serves clients from Flagstaff, Sedona, Tuba City, Winslow, Payson, Page, Williams, Prescott, Mesa, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Arizona
