This is a love letter. For the family photographed, a love letter to their daughter, who will someday look back at these images. For me, a love letter to the act of photographing families.
And especially to photographing families in their homes. When it comes to family sessions, there truly is no place like home. Is your home sparkling clean and immaculately decorated? If you have children, and Mary Poppins has yet to arrive on your doorstep, my guess is no, it is not. Does this matter? No, it does not.
A few things I love about home sessions. . .
Your pets are there! Though not human, I consider them to be a part of your family (as I imagine you do too), so unless you tell me otherwise, I will photograph them accordingly.
Your home, itself, is a part of your family’s story. When I look back at photos from my own childhood, it is the one’s taken at my home that I am most drawn to. The mulberry tree where I would hide away with my walkman, the afternoon light on the gold living room carpet, the bizarre bathroom wallpaper. I never need to see another photo of my family at the beach. But what I would give to uncover a stash of photos of us in our home.
Intimacy. There is a certain kind of comfort we, and especially our children, feel at home. Unless you have a special place, like a familiar creek, or stretch of woods, that has become home to you, it is hard to find this level of comfort anywhere else.
Let this also be a love letter to the families, like Gaia’s, who have graciously welcomed me into their homes, even into the rooms that weren’t tidied, in order to follow their children, who were clearly just following the light.