The first time I spoke to Heather, it was an hour-long chat about life, Star Wars, kids, Lord of the Rings, holidays, yoga, and thrown in ever-so-briefly, a bit about having family portraits done with me.
It was clear that Heather had thought long and hard about her family portraits – here’s one of the pearls she dropped during that conversation stopped me in my tracks:
I’m getting family portraits done for me, but I’m also having them taken because my boys will want to look at these family moments when they’re older – they’re just too young to realise that right now.
On the day of the shoot, we spoke on the phone a few times because the weather was so horrible at lunchtime that I honestly thought we’d have to reschedule. We stuck it out, and later in the afternoon it started to clear so by 4pm when we started shooting, we had beautiful afternoon light. The only problem was the howling on-shore winds that had whipped up off the ocean!
Turimetta Beach gives amazing afternoon light, and I did a quick sprint down the beach and found a sheltered spot by the cliff face that gave me several different backgrounds and light directions, and minimum wind. Happy days :)
I finished the shoot with a beautiful video-interview that unfortunately I can’t use due to wind-noise in the microphone. However, I transcribed some of the amazing things Heather had to say about her family, and why it’s so important to have portraits on the wall:
My family is everything to me – it’s what I come home to, it’s what I wake up with, it’s the beginning and the end of my day … it’s the forever.
It’s the artwork, the photography, it’s your family on the wall that makes it feel like: “This is our house, this is what we love, this is what we’re doing – these are the places we’ve been, this is what we’ve shared together”.
I love doing these kinds of photos, because it highlights my family and it represents who we are and what we love, and makes our house OUR HOME.
The same day Heather’s husband Alex collected her portraits, I received a text message from Heather in two parts – a photo of Alex standing next to their feature canvas on the wall already, and a message saying:
“OH WOW!!! :D Not shouting, just excitement. Absolutely perfect, thank you so very much. Love, love, love the photos. H x”
I want to thank Heather for being one of my all-time favourite clients to work with, who so clearly understands what family portraits are all about. Heather, you and Alex are always welcome for a cuppa at our place!
I also would like to say a massive Thank You to our wonderful long-term clients and friends Liz and Andy who referred Heather to us. We’ve been blessed with photographing both of Liz’s pregnancies, their children’s christenings and their family portraits too. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for sharing your family and friends with us.
