Welcome to my latest blog on our family adventures in Farnham Surrey, with notes on sticks and pixels and my latest availability for family photography sessions in Surrey and London.
How are you getting on at the moment?
I was so busy juggling my boys home-learning and rescheduling client sessions last week (for later on in the summer and autumn), I forgot to finish writing this blog post sharing some thoughts from our family adventures in Farnham Surrey.
It’s half term holiday for us from today and whilst I know some of you have the week off with your children, many of us are still working our way through the holiday week whilst continuing to juggle school work. It’s tough isn’t it!
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Pixels
The universe is not made of Atoms
It’s made of tiny stories
Muriel Rykeyser
This is my son aged two and a bit. He is now 9, getting very tall and on any of our family adventures in Farnham Surrey he will still play with sticks !
I came across these photographs just last week and was genuinely surprised at how much they tugged at my heart strings. While hunting around through old hard drives (looking for something else), I had completely forgotten I had taken these incredibly endearing photographs that sum up my son at this age, so well.
Immediately I loaded them onto my recent hard drive and have spent a few evenings editing them and here are the finished images. I am so pleased I found these images and it goes to show how easy it is to forget what we have stored away on hard drives and USB sticks.
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I can’t even really find the right words to describe just how much I find myself treasuring these images today.
When I took these photographs I was just playing. I was in the very early stages of starting up my family photography business and I had just invested in a new camera lens! A very exciting time!
My son had not that long ago become a big brother and was (and still is) a big fan of sticks! The pathway, where these photographs were taken, was in a nature reserve just beyond an allotment around the corner from where we owned our first family home.
Having this feeling, finding and enjoying these images all over again, really does affirm for me the exponential value that photographs can give us, over time.
Family photographs should never be kept away in pixel form on a hard drive. They deserve to be printed and enjoyed by everyone; not just Mum or Dad who access to the USB/hard drive/cloud storage system they are kept on. Our children need to see and enjoy them too!
We are currently planning a new photograph display wall at home in our family living/playroom. These will definitely make it on to the wall and I have a place for them in an album too.
Sticks
“A stick can be a pen, a sword, a witch’s broom…anything! That’s what childhood should be about – getting outdoors and going on adventures, using your imagination.”
Raleigh Ritchie
Any one of our little outdoor adventures as a family usually involves a stick! Even yesterday, on our walk around Frensham Little Pond, a very big stick made it into the car and now has a new home in our back garden. : )
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I’ve always encouraged our children’s love of sticks on our walks. They can invite all sorts of games and make for some beautifully animated moments when they become absorbed in playing with a stick.
Even a National Trust survey of parents found that the simple stick was voted the best for fuelling children’s imaginative play and creativity. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/…/the-humble-stick-reveale…
These photographs fill me up with happiness and love.
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They are more than mere pixels on my computer screen or ink on paper in a frame.
It is the best feeling ever to be able to take beautiful photographs for the families I work for and it’s an even better feeling when I see them years later and they thank me for helping them get them up on their walls at home and tell me just how ever more precious those photographs are to them, with every year that passes.
It’s one of the biggest reasons why I do this job!
Moral(s) of the story:
- have more photographs taken of your children (and you!) even when you don’ t feel like it! They may just be the photographs that hold the most value to you in years to come!
- don’t leave your memories sitting on hard drives as you all need to see and enjoy your family memories everyday! It’s exceptionally good for your soul and good for your family’s sense of identity and children’s self-worth!
- Play with sticks! : )
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Latest Availability
This is an update on my photography services subject to the changing Covid 19 UK Gov guidelines.
From end of June, I will begin my private outdoor family sessions again. I am currently booking in new clients as well as rescheduling clients who were booked in for Spring sessions cancelled due to Covid.
I have also set up some new mini session dates here with a flexible booking schedule to accommodate any further disruptions that might occur due to Covid 19. For details click here.
I have been photographing children outdoors in beautiful wide-open spaces from a 2 meter of more distance since forever! I am often sat in the bramble or laying in a muddy path with a very long lens usually a lot more than 2 meters away. I’ve shared a classic example here ….the things I will do for a great image!
If you are interested in booking a family session this Summer or Autumn, getting in touch quickly! I have added in only a few extra session dates for the remainder of this year and my spring families will be booking back into some of these dates too.
Use my contacts form here or you can phone me on 07903772960.
