A few years back we first met Nita and Damien’s family, and shot some great family portraits at Coogee Beach with their son when he was about a year old. I recently had the chance to catch up with them at Centennial Park for some updated family portraits with their one-year-old daughter!
I could honestly say this was one of my most fun shoots in ages. Nita and Damien have such a fantastic bent sense of humour, that we all get along brilliantly. I actually had to stop talking so much and remember to take some pictures!
We started at the duck pond on a morning where the sun had just poked out after a day or two of rain. The kids were really excited about feeding the ducks, and I simply adore the expression of wonder and love on Nita’s face as she helped them out:
What was really beautiful about this shoot was the energy of the kids, and the fact that Nita was happy to encourage their zany behaviour!
It’s easy – and common – for many parents to start asking kids to settle down, subduing the kids excitable personalities because they fear it will ruin the portraits. It’s quite counter-intuitive, but sometimes encouraging the kids to have fun and play results in better, more real family portraits.
This is only a small selection – Nita and Damien chose something like 18 or 20 portraits, and in a trend that seems to be occurring more and more, they opted for a larger number of smaller prints. To them, it was more important to have the best story of their kids across a wide range of portraits, instead of a narrow selection of images printed larger for wall display.
Either way, I loved this shoot, and am really proud of the finished images. I hope you enjoyed them too!
Remember, there’s only a short amount of time left to book in a family portrait session with me before we leave Sydney. Call Dorothy or myself on (02) 9665 0800 or email us on info@israelsmith.com.
