Anyone who has had a session with me or HECK anyone who has ever even MET me, knows how I feel about PLAY and silliness and laughter! You know that I don’t believe true family photography can’t exist without a good sense of playfulness!
It’s the magic behind every GOOD and wonderful family session. It’s the magic of what makes YOUR family special! Play is at the heart of everything we do with each other! If we aren’t having fun and being silly… why are we here?! We are here to ENJOY each other and goodness gracious we better enjoy these babies while we can because time moves so fast! And my biggest, my most precious reason why I LOVE being a family photographer so much is that I get to stop time for a few precious minutes each time you choose to let me! I get to do this so you can savor your family in this moment in time right here and right now. You get to experience that second in time over and over again. You can re-visit that one single breath, that one playful laugh or giggle or snuggle or experience that was YOURS no matter what time or life might bring you down the road in the future.
HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!
I mean think about it… HOW SERIOUSLY AWESOME IS THAT?! GAH!
So the next time you think about family photos, I want you to think about them a bit differently! I don’t want you to worry about the “perfect pictures.” I don’t want you to worry so much about will everyone behave or oh my gosh what will we all wear!
My dear sweet mama, trust me I’m with you. I worry about those things too! We all do! We WANT our photos to be great. We want them to be beautiful and epic! We want them to be nice so we can put them in frames on our walls or put them on our christmas cards! I do too!
But I want to take the pressure off of you a little bit. I want you to relax and little and start seeing what I see when I truly look at your family through the beautiful lens of my camera:
- I see a family that has a unique connection and love that only you can show me!
- I see unconditional love
- I see daughters and sons who look at their parents with eyes of adoration
- I see mothers and fathers who look at their little ones with hopes and dreams and I’ve loved you before you were even here
- I see magic!
So please… take a deep breath when you feel that panic rise. Please, when you step foot out of your car on the day of your family session the only thing I want you to be thinking of is that this is your time to just PLAY with your family. There is no need to worry or do anything else because YOU already have everything you will ever need: love!
Your only requirement is to snuggle! I want you to talk to one another and run wild and be free! I will encourage you to laugh like me (BIG AND WIDE and maybe even snort a little!). I want you to completely LET GO and maybe even act like a kid yourself!
I want you to have a YES NIGHT! Say yes to staying out a little later. Say yes to acting like an elephant with me and the kids! Say yes to screaming at the top of your lungs and then rolling with a fit of laughter! Say yes to a super big bear hug and eyelash butterfly kisses! Say yes to NOT looking at the camera and looking into the eyes of your babies. Say yes to holding hands and hugging and high fives and peek a boo! Say yes to however it is that YOU play when it’s just you guys in your own home one on one!
And if you have ever been on a session at the beach with me before… say YES to ending the night with a wild splash in the ocean!
Trust me…. the more you play the more your love: the more your unique magic will shine!
And isn’t that what we truly want in the end? To see how our lives are when we let that love come through!
I know that’s what I want at the end of the day!
After 12 years of freezing time and capturing joyful, magical moments for family’s and also writing and documenting my own… I’ve learned one very important thing!
Those babies that we held on our chests and stayed up with around the clock will soon enough turn into tween with braces! I’m there right now!
And all we will have left is the stories we’ve written and the images we captured! The moments we said yes to and the giggles and hugs we savored!
Play is our legacy with them! It’s the love language we all understand!
So get out there, let go and PLAY!
I’ll be here in the meantime, waiting to capture all those beautiful memories that happen while you are living in the moment!
