Picture you and your family running through a grassy paddock, laughing, happy filled with joy. You scoop them up and plant huge kisses on their cheeks and they squeal with glee…
Now picture you, twenty years from now, sitting at your kitchen table, steamy mug of tea next to you, your children have now grown and flown the nest, so the house is still and quiet. It has been for some years now.
You look up from the magazine you’d been idly reading, and notice a picture on the shelf; it’s a photograph of that kiss. All at once the air is sucked from the room as you’re plunged back into the heart of that memory, and you’re standing in that grassy paddock once again, the trill of your children’s laughter fills your ears as the breeze gently plays across your cheek.
On another day you might have forgotten that moment, but this photograph means that for this particular day, you never can. You’ll always be able to savour the day you and your children spent a moment luxuriating in the deep and profound love you have for one another.
Because of that photo your memory is as vivid now as it was on that day twenty years ago.
You pick up your mug; your magazine abandoned, and begin to walk through your house. That day, that joy-filled day is painted all over your walls, as frames housing photos more valuable than the sum of their parts greet you at every turn. Your babies smile back at you from those beautiful artworks you and your family created that day. You can see each of their little personalities shining through as they played and adventured with you through the trees.
In this now-quiet house, these are your most precious and valuable things.
They are testimony of your love for your family, they are the memory that time will never fade, and they are the things that make your house a home.
I want this for you.
For each of you…
To create something that will always, and in an instant, bring you back to your heart. Something that hangs on your walls that speaks to you everyday, reminding you of the pure and glorious bond you share with your family.
This is why I use adventure and play in my family portrait sessions. Because to me authenticity is magnificent; where real connection, uninhibited joy, and genuine laughter trump posed, conventional family pictures every time.
There is no emotion in traditional family portraits, no connection, no personality, no soul.
These are not the photographs that will make you catch your breath and cry because there is no real emotional power to them. They are for record keeping, not honest remembering.
It only takes one simple hour spent frolicking in golden sun, and you will have your reward – your own gallery of photographic memories, printed and framed, adorning your walls. And I promise, these photographs will become legacy items for you and your family, as you won't be able to help but treasure them for generations.
So together we’ll play games, find ‘treasures’ under rocks and monsters behind trees. You and your children will run and jump and hide and snuggle and laugh and play so your truth and connection shines through. And I’ll be right there as you and your babes play, to guide, laugh and rejoice with you, and capture the essence of you and yours so that you’ll never forget a thing.
You’ll have testimony of those quirky little smiles, the cheeky grins, the little interactions between each of you, the in-between moments of shared tenderness and care – all the things that make you and your family so unique and incredible. It will be there on your walls, on the shelves of your bookcases, that legacy of love and connection – the true beauty that is your family, not some contrived photo that shows nothing more than a group of people standing next to each other.
My play-filled, adventurous family portrait sessions are not something you’ll regret, and they are one investment you will cherish. However, the future you, twenty years from now, when your children have moved on with their lives, will regret the blank spaces in your home where these precious memories should be.
You have absolutely nothing to loose and yet decades of gratitude, warmth and joy to gain.
So, let’s go and create some forever memories for you and your family today.