Nov 21 2023

Day in the Life Family Documentary Photos: The Bulans in Black Mountain, NC

I met Mary Bulan in a Tiny House building workshop at Wild Abundance last fall, and was delighted to discover that her wife Kiera was a classmate of mine at Wesleyan, on campus at the same time I was and hanging out in adjacent social circles. After getting my family documentary photography concept solidified I was eager to capture some different families and the Bulans have such a unique lifestyle I just had to spend the day with them! They are raising 2 young boys, 2 cats, and a dog, all while managing a small flower farm in Black Mountain.

Over the course of this saturday we spent together they made the kids breakfast, harvested flowers and the boys played outside. They took the family for a hike with the dog over on the trails surrounding Montreat college– it was a gorgeous day for a walk through the woods. Upon return home there was some downtime for Kiera to arrange flowers for selling from a stand by the driveway, and the boys got into a baseball game on TV. Later in the afternoon it was time for them to host the last U-Pick window of the fall over at their flower farm field they manage, and they had invited friends and family to come out and enjoy the last nice weather with them. That night it was expected that freezing temps would inevitably damage the remaining flowers and peppers they had been growing at the farm, so everyone was encouraged to pick as many flowers as they could! I myself even brought home a vase with some lovely zinnia and other gorgeous blooms!

While Mary and Kiera hosted friends and customers at the U-Pick, the boys played in the adjacent field with friends, throwing the baseball, finding and swinging sticks around at each other, tackling and and rough-housing as boys this age so often do. I had a blast capturing the pure energy of these two and their buddies playing outside. And of course, I love shooting flowers, so I have included in a few images of the blossoms at the farm to give you a taste of this sweet flower farm!

After packing up the van, it was time for an pizza dinner at their favorite local spot, complete with some arcade-areas options for the kids to spend a few quarters in. They got the baseball game up on the TV and everyone was happy and hungery for pizza. The boys were exhausted at the end of the day, and watching the end of the game was a special treat they got if they’d get ready for bed and brush their teeth. Mary read them a book and they were off to sweet baseball dreams.

These boys are so lucky to grow up with a pair of supermoms like Mary and Kiera, I had such a sweet time getting to capture a day in the life of this wonderful family and I was so inspired by them I may just have to figure out a way to set up bouquets of flowers for sale from a stand in my own driveway next spring!

Want to see more of these sessions? Click here or here to visit a few other Day in the Life family documentary sessions I’ve shot in the WNC / Asheville area– you get me for a full day of observing and artistically capturing all the sweet, funny, routine, and sometimes painfully authentic moments that will pull up all the genuine memories you can look back on and relive what it was like inside your family at this moment in time.