Come and join me today for a morning at home with a stay at home Mum.
When I first spoke with Millie about her ideas for her photoshoot, we could not have been more aligned. I am a hugely sentimental person, and want to soak up and remember every single seemingly simple moment of my own life, so reading through her list, I knew this was going to bring back so many memories for me.
When it comes to family photoshoots, Instagram, Pinterest and the universe have made us believe that we need to have some elaborate photoshoot, skipping down a beach at sunset in perfectly coordinating outfits. Don’t get me wrong, the photos they produce are beautiful of course, but how often do we do that in real life with our children?! I’m telling you now, I avoid doing most things at sunset with my children, because bedtime routine is stressful enough as it is. That doesn’t mean we don’t break the mould from time to time. Maybe more so when they weren’t at school and we weren’t driving to 95 after school activities, but generally, we were not dressing up and heading out during witching our regularly!
When I look at my own family albums, they are filled with all of our regular family moments. Being the photographer of the family, the only way I am in any of my photos, is by setting up a tripod. I can count on one hand (Also: finger) how many times I’ve dressed my family up and gone out for sunset photos. It was awful. I was stressed, everyone was crying, we almost missed sunset, there were mozzies out and I felt defeated. The also didn’t feel like us.
Our family love the simple things in life. I live in activewear generally because I’m always crawling around on the floor with someone, burning 500 calories getting kids in and out the car etc.
My absolute favourite photos I have of me with my children are me cooking dinner with them sat on the bench helping, hanging out laundry for the 20th time that day or sitting down on the floor playing games. (They also remind me I’m a good Mum when sometimes I feel like I’m not as present as I’d like to be).
Time has gone by so quickly since they were born, and little things like them needing help to get dressed or tie their shoes are slowly slipping away from me.
That’s when Millie sent me her list of things she wanted to remember about his two little ones being this age. She was so like me that as the day went on, she messaged me a few times to add more to the list. I absolutely knew this was going to quickly become one of my favourites photoshoots ever.
Here is the most wonderful list of photoshoot ideas I’ve ever seen.
Now, just like any other photoshoot, children still have a limit on attention span and tolerance to being photographed. However, what I love most about documentary family photography is that they barely notice you are there. It’s why I also believe my children have been so tolerant to me following them with my camera for years. I rarely ask them to smile at a photo. I quickly get the shot of them in the moment and then the camera gets put away.
I wanted to get as much from Millies list as I could, without it feeling forced, and also giving the children time to actually be in the moment. Children will not tolerate being set up for beautiful play and then being asked to move on to the next thing 2 minutes later. While there is a job to get done during family photoshoots, I don’t want them to feel like puppets and I want for them to just be kids.
I sent Millie my ideas for how I would plan to run the session so she knew what to expect on the morning.
When I showed up the first thing she said to me was ‘A mess was made right before you arrived but I told them not to clean it up’.
Childhood is messy. And Loud. And colourful. And vibrant. And FUN!
This was a documentary photoshoot. No posing. No pretending to be something you’re not. AND NO TIDYING!! 😉
Houses that children live in aren’t tidy. Instagram may have you believe they are, but children explore and learn through making mess and getting out all the things. And that’s okay.
They leave crumbs. The vacuum is always out and someone probably has on odd socks.
But these are all the things that made childhood so wonderful. They remind us of who our children were at that age. What funny little quirks they had. What stages they went through – like wearing a tutu with leggings and gum boots. Never wanting to brush their hair. Certain toys they wouldn’t put down.
I know for sure this is what I want for my own photos.
I loved this simple morning routine style photoshoot for Millie and her gorgeous children. I’m not the best with words, so I’ll let the words do the talking.
Little visual love letters to share when they are grown, of days gone by.
If you are interested in your own documentary family photoshoot, you can contact me here, I’d love to photograph these moments for your family.
