Why do I photograph families? Why is it important, and why should you not put it off any longer?
Why do I, as a photographer, want you to take time out of your busy life to have your photos taken?
Is it so I can make a tidy little profit and then move onto the next client willing to pass their hard earned money onto me? Well, photography is how I pay my mortgage, but, and this is a huge ‘but’, it is not the reason that I want to photograph you.
I love what I do and I will do it for as long as I can. I can’t imagine doing anything else for a living – I not only love photography for its creative element, but because I also think photography is important. I just want to take photographs forever, and there is a lifetimes worth (and more) of photographs to take! I’ll never take all the shots I want to take.
The art of capturing a photograph allows us to be in control of a time machine. Stop and think about this for a moment. You stop time with this piece of equipment, and that moment is preserved forever. That is just amazing!
I want to work with people that feel the same way that I do about the power of photography. People who realise that these moments in our lives are fleeting and are worth preserving, and who will love, really love looking at those photos every day.
It’s just all too easy to just not bother. We’re all busy, and it takes effort to make the time to have a portrait session.
Here’s the reality…
We’re moving onwards, on an unstoppable path, life moves forward and things change. Our plans don’t always go to plan.
Your new born baby is just beautiful – stop for a moment and really think about this. Why would you not want to preserve that look forever?
Your children are with you now, but they’ll leave home one day…it really will happen, and that day seems to get ever closer with my two girls…surely it was only yesterday that they were born?! There are so many photographs that I’ve missed and those times in their lives are gone. I don’t even know what I’ve forgotten without having a record of it! And I’m a photographer!
Your family members are all with you now, but not forever. One of my favourite family photographs was taken at my grandparents Golden Wedding party. All the family were there, it was hot and sunny, and it was on the same day as Live Aid….fantastic. How easy would it have been to have no record at that entire event? We have a great photo of the whole family, in all our ’80’s finery. At the time as a moody teenager, I couldn’t be bothered, and complained about it. Now, today, that photograph is priceless. Some family members are no longer with us, and the whole family just never seems to get together often enough. At the time you think they will, and you think everything is forever so why bother!
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A family photograph taken at my grandparents Golden Wedding celebrations – on the day of Live Aid 1985
Here’s one of my client stories – there are more but this one really resonated with me.
The family were renting a house and having a weekend get-together. It was their parents 60th and the whole family would be there – the parents, their children, and their grand children. The photography was to be a 60th birthday gift.
We chatted and decided that it would be great to get a really good mix of photographs that would not only give them some great directed and posed shots of various family groupings, but we would also take some more natural shots of everyone just enjoying themselves. Try to tell some of the story of the weekend.
I spent a couple of hours photographing the family – it was great fun and I got a whole range of shots. I edited and processed the photos and presented them to the parents, and they loved them. She said it was the best birthday present she’d ever received. Why is that? It’s easy to have a piece of stuff as a present, just some object that you’ll be excited about on the day but will be forgotten about tomorrow. These photos were to her, the story of that weekend, and a perfect time capsule of her family.
The mother fell ill and died recently. The client called me and told me that her mother kept telling her family that the photography was the best present she had ever received, and had the photos with her, even in hospital. I know that these photos are now priceless to the family. The value of what they have as memories is what means everything to them.
That’s why I do it. There are so many moments and stories in your life and I want to capture them all to make sure that you really do own something that is priceless.
If you would love to your story captured, call me and we can make sure your story is told now.
What is the thing that most of us say we would grab first if we had a fire in the house (other than the children obviously)? It’s our photographs–hard copies or digital–they are arguably the most important documents of our lives.
The make us reflect, laugh, cry, smile. They mark the big events as a family, but also the day in and day out of lives shared together. Family photographs serve as “triggers” of a time and place, physically, but also a state of mind. I might be reminded what my child was like at that time developmentally–babbling away, or me overwhelmed, but overjoyed by the new role of motherhood.
Family photographs are up there for me. They are real treasures.