Even as a professional photographer I get asked by my own family if I can take our family photos. I mean it would make sense right? Well let me be the first to tell you it doesn’t work this way.

When you hire a professional photographer you are not just hiring someone to ‘click away’ snaps of your family. I know it may seem this way to many but follow me for a few while I elaborate. Your experience with your photographer starts way before the actual day of your session. I can only speak for myself as a photographer when I say I try and alleviate some of the stress from my clients when it comes to preparing for wardrobe, location, time of the session, how to prep your children and husband for the day of your session, etc. I want my clients to truly enjoy their session with their loved ones and as a result I am better able to capture those genuine loving interactions, hugs, laughter, silliness & what makes every individual family unique! I would love to go on about how I take care of my clients and the experience I offer but let’s keep that for a different day, different blog!

Now you may be thinking, ‘ok ok ok all this sounds nice but is it necessary?’ Well, is it necessary to hire a wedding planner for the day of your wedding? Is it necessary to hire a realtor when searching for your new home? Probably not, but will it help take away stress from you and give you the relief to actually enjoy the process, most definitely! You are hiring a professional that is an expert in that specific field & as a result you will get the results you are truly looking for and will love! You will eliminate being worried and become stressed about x, y, & z, and as a result be able to take deep clear breaths, enjoy the process and moment!

I explained to my family all of this, how I can’t be in two places at once. I can’t be in front of the camera but at the same time giving prompts in order to capture those genuine expressions and directing. They still wanted to give it a go & let me be the first to say it was a hot mess! Seriously, my face was tense and stressed, I forgot to feed my youngest, the wardrobe was off and the results were just not good! hahahaha I know you may be thinking but how? I surely know to feed my kids before a session, I surely know how to piece wardrobes together & capture genuine connections right? Well I was too busy prepping my gear for the day of the shoot, so I forgot to attend to my little, I was too busy directing that I wasn’t able to FULLY enjoy the moment & I wasn’t able to see and fix someone ‘hunching their back’ or fixing ‘someones dress’ because again I could not be in two places at once …. it was all an EPIC FAIL!

But of course, I managed to salvage some so here are a couple…. still of course I’m thankful for our images, but i definitely wished I could have been less stressed to have enjoyed the moments with my family & of course I still see some things I could have fixed if I was on the other side of the lens. But nonetheless, here are a few of the captures & the only one of my son semi smiling as he’s running away not trying to cooperate because of his hangryness hahahaha….. Enjoy!