Savouring the moments more as your children grow up

Photos of your kids get harder to take as they grow older. We all love the baby photos, and the first few years are very well documented. But it seems that the less cute they become (and unwilling!), the less we capture of them.

But it’s just as important (maybe more so) to get photos of your children as they get older. Every age and stage is precious, and like it or not, is also one step closer to them going off on their own. It might still feel like a long way off, or you might be navigating this already.

Ask any mum of grown up children and they’ll tell you: you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.

The prospect of motivating teenagers to get photos taken can be somewhat intimidating I guess so I‘d really like to encourage all parents not to only have photos taken with babies and little kids but also when the kids are bigger.

The last family holiday in Cornwall captured

Kerstin contacted me from Germany about a family holiday photoshoot during their visit to Cornwall.

She and her family have travelled every year to St Ives for their family holiday, but this year would be the last time her 15 year old daughter was planning to go with them.

Life was starting to change; the children were growing up.

Kerstin wanted their ‘overdue’ family photoshoot to capture their gorgeous Cornish summer memories.

As she put it, it had been a while since they had a family photo taken which ‘wasn’t a selfie with either a silly pre-schooler or moody teen’. Plus the fact that Kerstin was the family photographer, and barely in any of the photos they did have.

Relaxed session at the beach

All Kerstin wanted was photos capturing her family enjoying themselves, in a very natural way, on their favourite beach in Cornwall.

We had a pre-session consultation on Zoom, and chatted about what to expect, outfit ideas etc, and kept in touch in the weeks and days leading to the session. Fortunately the weather was outstanding - they had timed their visit to Cornwall perfectly!

We met at the beach, and it was such a magical fun evening of laughter and banter with this lovely family. So much love too.

Bittersweet memories were being made - in Buddhism we call it the heart of sadness, knowing while enjoying it that a happy time will end.

Once they got back to Germany it was lovely to send the gallery to Kerstin and let her see the photos from our session. I always imagine it must be a lovely warm feeling to have your photos sent after you’ve just returned home from a lovely holiday.

Kind words

She left the most lovely review afterwards:

Based in Germany as a family of five, we spend our annual summer break in Cornwall. This spring, I thought about having a photoshooting at our favorite beach during our vacation and found Michelle via a Google search. How lucky I was! After exchanging a few friendly emails and a video call we met at the beach on one of the very few sunny July evenings during sunset. Michelle not only had a clear creative vision of what we could do but made the whole experience a real pleasure. My kids are between 7 and 15, the 7yo is a bit shy of cameras, the teenagers had their own ideas about their portraits and my mama-heart wanted family portraits. Michelle made it all happen, with lot of laughter and fun, going through all the ideas and fulfilling all our wishes. We had an evening filled with laughter and quality time and got beautiful photos! From the first contact to discussing which photos to choose, Michelle was the perfect companion for this endeavor and I am so happy I found her. The prospect of motivating teenagers to get photos taken can be somewhat intimidating I guess so I‘d really like to encourage all parents not to only have photos taken with babies and little kids but also when the kids are bigger. Beautiful memories - and Michelle will guide you to wonderful outcome, I promise!”

If you have older children please don’t feel that they’re not going to cope well with a photoshoot. Trust me, the only thing anyone ever has to be at a session is honest and true to themselves. My job is to capture the truth, which is what you’ll want to remember.

It’s just us hanging out, and I’ll just happen to have my camera on me. They might just surprise you and it will probably be easier for me to get something than you’d expect.

To book or enquire about a session with me, get in touch - I’d love to learn more.