With special thanks to Evolve Photography, Twyford.
Last month I got married!!! Hooray!
But it has meant that there have been some huge changes in both mine and my daughter’s lives. Having lived as a happy little family of two for the last seven and half years, we have become quite settled and content with the way things were, so making two into three has had some challenges. The biggest so far has been dealing with “sharing the love”! My daughter was concerned about whether I will still love her as much as I used to. And what if we have a baby? Will there be enough love to go round? Will I still have time for her?
I was talking about this with a family I met recently and they suggested that we have a family photo session. They explained that not only will we have some beautiful photos of us as a family – a great reminder of what we now are – but the actual session is like a form of family therapy because it brings families together, allowing them to let go and share some special moments together, all of which will be “captured on film”.
So we booked in for a session at Evolve Photography in Twyford, an independent studio specialising in family portraits, as I had heard that they have a great team of photographers who bring out the best in the families
they shoot. I was contacted by Stacey prior to our session to find out if we had any interests that we wanted to capture in our shoot, such as a shared passion, hobby, sport or even pet! In our case, we simply wanted our pictures to reflect us as a happy family unit.
We were excited but a little unsure about standing in front of a stranger and ‘fake-smiling’ whilst ‘trying’ to look like a happy family, but Stacey, our photographer was brilliant. She gave us direction from the very first shot and we all soon relaxed and had SO MUCH FUN! We were throwing ourselves and each other around, giggling and laughing, and falling about. We left the studio feeling exhilarated and wondered off down the road for a curry, not wanting our lovely evening to end!
A week later I went to view the photos with Jake, another of the photographers, and I was totally blown away by the slide-show he projected onto the wall! We had been told to wear bright colours so we wouldn’t get lost in the white studio, looking like 3 floating heads, so we had picked out our BRIGHTEST outfits! And as a result, the photos are amazing – as if we are jumping out of some of them! Having had such fun at the session, I was expecting the results to be good but these far exceeded my expectations. There were SO many lovely photos of us genuinely smiling, laughing, hugging and squeezing, looking natural and n
ot at all fake!
The only mistake I made was going to the viewing session alone, against Stacey’s advice. Not only did seeing the photos almost bring me to tears, but I had to try to work out which pictures to print and which frames to choose and this was actually impossible without my lovely new husband to help me (and I’m pretty independent). For now we have the digital package of the best images to help us decide!
I can now totally understand why I was told that this experience would be like a “family therapy session”.
We shared the love and showed the love to one another in ways that we don’t usually
We spent over an hour indulging in us as a family
We have the photos as a reminder that we ARE now a family
It was a great way to bring us all together
Okay, it’s not going to sort out any deep routed problems but it is a great way to bring a family together and to bring back the physical affection that can slip as time goes by. And in our case as “newly-weds”, it helped to break down some barriers.
If you are thinking about having some family photos taken, get in touch with Michelle or Marc at Evolve on 0118 932 0122, pack up your brightest clothes and prepare to have A LOT OF FUN!!!