Porch Project | Lifestyle Portraits | Iowa City Area

CTW Photography’s April Porch Project was an amazingly fun whirlwind of both new and familiar faces. The weekend was jam-packed with micro-sized lifestyle portrait sessions. Equipped with long zoom lenses to keep at a safe distance, we visited clients/friends in Iowa City, Coralville, North Liberty, Tiffin, Solon and Ely! “Payment” for these sessions: donate to a hospital or other non-profit organization, and/or support a local small business. These sessions were also free of charge to clients who booked or had already booked future sessions with us. Our mission was simple: sprinkle a little happiness and light into these dark, uncertain times.

One great perk of a front porch session: when we’re right in the front yard, it’s fairly easy to bring furry family members outside for a quick portrait. Seven very good dogs made appearances throughout the weekend’s sessions!

This stop was particularly meaningful for us. We met Leah and Ryon outside their home on Saturday, April 25th, what was originally meant to be their wedding day. It’s been so hard to see our spring 2020 wedding couples deal with the disappointment of having to completely alter their plans. This was a fun way to acknowledge their original wedding date, not to mention get us SO excited for when they will get to tie the knot in August.

In several neighborhoods, we visited one family and then strolled just down the street to a neighbor’s house. Families stood in their yards, chatting at a distance as their kids played. What a wonderful, warm sense of community.

We recognize those cute grins! It was great getting to visit our long-time clients/friends as well as completely new faces.

Photographing kids “just being kids” is one of our favorite things. They play, laugh and have fun while we stay in the background to capture all those genuine smiles. Some wonderful playtime moments we caught this weekend included bike riding, blowing bubbles, reading books and playing on backyard swing sets!

Another very meaningful stop was Kendra and Ross’ home. We last saw them here in the fall for their lifestyle engagement session — the one with the pizza-making. With their May wedding plans disrupted, it was so great to see their faces. Also, they’ve since added this very good boy, Spencer, to the family! As you can probably tell from these pictures, this dog radiates happiness and positivity. Photographing him playing in the yard was such fun.

It was great to meet Katie and Alex for a few pictures outside their home. We get to photograph their wedding in the fall! On the flip side, we also had the joy of seeing a handful of past wedding clients, like Sarah and Zeke (and Aspen!).

What a weekend! We’re deeming this Porch Project a success.
We know this has been a hard spring for, well, everybody. It’s definitely not the one that we were planning for and imagining. So many exciting projects on our to-do list have been delayed or otherwise disrupted…and many of our friends, especially small businesses, are feeling the same pain. These changes have been hard, but necessary and so important; we’re doing our part to help keep our clients/friends safe and healthy. And in the meantime, documenting these simple, happy moments out in the sunshine brought us joy; we hope it brought you joy, too. There may be distance between us, but we’re all in this together.