Family Photography Session on the Sunshine Coast
My first blog post is dedicated to all of those parents out there who have dreamed of having some family portraits done, but are constantly stuck waiting for the ‘perfect time.’ I hate to break it to you, but being a mother of two young children myself, there is no such thing. Life with young children is like this constantly chaotic, chasing your tail, chronically messy, sleep deprived cycle that just keeps on going. If you don’t force yourself once in a while to stop and take a step back, you will miss all of the beautiful moments that happen along the way.
Have you looked at portfolios of family sessions done by photographers and thought ‘gosh, I could never get my family to look like that’ or ‘my kids would never behave.’ Well, let me take you on a journey. A real, behind the scenes look at the reality of a family photo shoot.
The Trevors are this insanely gorgeous family with a young daughter named Bella. They wanted to have their family photo shoot on their family’s cane farm. I was beyond excited by the opportunity to explore their farm- what photographer doesn’t dream of endless grassy fields and rows upon rows of cane?
***I would also like to note that this wonderful family gave me their full permission to use their story for my blog.
We met up half hour before the shoot on the property, and Nat took me on a tour of the farm so we could select the best locations for pictures. It was during this drive that Nat told me two things:
1) Bella had been up vomiting all night the night before
2) She was 6 weeks pregnant, and felt like shit (she is now very far into a healthy pregnancy so no surprise announcements being made!!)
Coo Coo Coo. So I had a challenge on my hands. Luckily, kids are so freaking resilient. They can be up vomiting all night, not sleep, yet manage to giggle and laugh and play, (between tears, of course). If I’M up vomiting all night, the world needs to know about it, and I’ll see you in a week’s time.
We started off our shoot by this insanely beautiful tree. I had them simply play with Bella. This distracted her, and got her laughing right away. And what parent doesn’t smile when their child is doing belly laughs? Families playing and interacting with each other is a great way to relax into the session.
We then headed to what I THOUGHT was going to be the highlight of the shoot: the Cane Fields. I’m from Canada. There’s only so much I know about farming in general. I can tell you, I know even less about farming in Australia. Especially when it comes to Cane. So it turns out there are about 1 billion bugs that I have never even seen before that live on the cane, and come out in full force during the ‘golden hour.’ We were MAULED. COVERED. It was like we were wearing jackets of bugs. It was disgusting and hilarious and overwhelming, all wrapped up into one. Each stalk of cane was just crawling in bugs. And it turns out they were more interested in us than in the cane when we came close enough. We have now learned that if you keep a safe distance back from the cane, it is a bit safer.
During a session, I like to capture every moment, every interaction. The ‘in between’ moments, like moving to a different location to escape the bugs, is a great chance to capture all of the candid little moments.
I also love to make sure mom and dad get a moment together. Often the response is that they haven’t had photos taken of them together since their wedding- are you smiling and nodding while reading this?
Being on a beautiful stretch of farmland, there was plenty of other space to work with. Bella also appreciated the breaks along the way in between our different locations to just be in moms arms.
By this point, I knew we had captured some great shots of them as a family, despite the swarms of bugs, so it was OK that Bella was pretty over it. The reality is that kids who have slept all night, napped, and haven’t been vomiting will still lose interest in the camera fairly quickly. Moving on to more interactive moments as the sun set worked perfectly and had Bella smiling and laughing again. What kid doesn’t like being swung in between their parents arms?
What message I want you to take from this, is that you don’t have to have your life perfectly in sorts in order to have family photos done. Kids are kids. They have their good days, and they have their bad days. Within those good days, they have crazy mood swings. Throw in a childhood illness at least once a month as the cherry on top. It’s okay to let kids experience all of those emotions, yes, even during a photo shoot. Let them express themselves. When they are able to express themselves, this is when the real moments are captured.
Let me help you capture those beautiful moments, those little interactions, those belly laughs and big hugs. Those soothing, comforting moments. So that when you look at these photos for years to come, you can fully enter into that moment in time again.
To all those moms and dads who took the time out of their day to read my blog, first of all thank you. Second of all, let the Trevors story help ease your worries surrounding a photo shoot with young kids. Simply come, and be yourselves. And third, let us all stay well away from cane fields at sunset.
