When I met Steven, he was a preteen who had just given himself an accidental body piercing. He somehow had managed to jab the metal clip from a hanging name tag so that it entered and exited the skin of his palm like a fish hook. He also managed to be so calm about the whole incident that his mother initially didn’t believe him when he said he couldn’t put down his name tag. But when his mother got a good look at the foreign object embedded in his palm, she brought Steven to me. Fortunately, his tetanus shots were up to date, and we were able to remove the offending clip with wire cutters so we could apply direct pressure to the wound. Through the whole episode, I marveled at how chill Steven remained.

Years later, I found that Steven could maintain his dispassionate demeanor through a series of family photo sessions. I was a bit uncertain how his senior session was going to go, but Steven happily rose to the occasion. So much so, in fact, that he has way too many good shots to limit to one blog post.

To be continued . . .