Home Sweet Home
From the mom:
We chose to do these photos because we really feel like our kids are in the sweet spot of our family life. No more babies, but not independent enough to be off on their own. We enjoy our time together as a family. We love to travel as much as we can, and are at a point where things feel really good being us. It was important that these photos were done in our home and our yard, as this has been our family home and may not be for much longer. We are ready to embark on a new journey....to enter the next step of our children's life where they are going to become independent, find out more about themselves as a person, and as parents we hope to give them the best opportunities to grow into good people that will do good things for this world. But for this moment, they are still ours, safe, innocent, and able to enjoy the simple things....like a fire in the backyard, hanging out in the tree fort, and being loved by their siblings, mom and dad.
I like to play 'spot the cat' with these photos...so hard to narrow this session down. I think their gallery had well over 150 images...I stayed so long...had a glass of wine and walked away feeling like I had made new friends :) Love that...
~ Dana
Christmas Carols and Cookies
This was my fourth trip to visit this wonderful family. It was the mom's idea to do a Christmas-y session. We were laughing about how her neighbours probably think she is a bit crazy for having two(yes, two) Christmas trees already up and decorated. But, hey...she's all done now and she can just focus on having an amazing holiday season with the people she loves :) We listened to Christmas carols, played in the snow, cuddled with Papa while he read us 'The Night Before Christmas' and toasted with a bit of Champagne. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon...here is a wee sneaky peaky.
This last picture is of mom and her grandma. It has become one of my most(if not my most) liked photo on Facebook. Sometimes it is hard to convince our grandparents to get in the picture, but always so SO worth it...
After I posted that picture, the mom sent me a lovely email. I especially loved this piece of what she said:
I know that each of these 'memories' you take are creating a journal of my little girl's past. Does that make sense? I think I know the kind of young woman she is going to grow into - and I love that she will have a visual narrative to help make sense of where she came from.
How lucky am I to be a part of this family's narrative? Pretty gosh darn lucky.
~ Dana
Motherhood
One of my favourite images from this fall and not a yellow leaf in sight. For me, though...it is a picture of what it is like to be a family welcoming a new one. It also represents the type of image that I want to take...I want you to see yourselves sitting in your living room and know that there is beauty in the chaos around you...because sometimes family life is chaotic, but it is always beautiful. And, it is easy to forget that. So, I want to take the pictures that remind you of that fact. The mother in this image wrote me the loveliest email after she received her images. She agreed to let me share some of it with you all:
"I just wanted to say how much I believe in what you do and your vision. I've shown these to some friends and family and it's so interesting to see people's reactions. Some really prefer photos of everyone lined up and looking straight at the camera, or in some cute pose. And some (but not everyone) really see the beauty in capturing a shared glance or a facial expression or a feeling of day (warts and all). I desperately want to save those moments because when you look at them later, they tell you so much about who we were then. Photos like these become more valuable as time goes on, and I can't even appreciate how they will make me feel in the future when I look at them through the glasses of all our experiences yet to be lived."
~ Jenn and Aric
What a lovely present that email was...I am grateful that this mother is open to letting me share it with you. This image is 'family' to me. Warts and all :)
~ Dana
