Laugh you long time...The Clarksons: Studio Portrait Session

What is the best age to invest in professional family photos? It’s a tricky one because our families change so quickly and every phase our kids go through is special and worth documenting. But we do tend to focus more on our brand-new babies and very cute little toddlers, and less so on our kids when they are older, which is a shame as I find the pre-teen stage totally awesome to photograph because kids are in this amazing space where they still embrace the innocence of childhood but it’s teamed with the promise of the young adult to come.

One of my very dear old school mates, Rach, decided to do a studio family session for just that reason:

“Our eldest is in her final year of primary school. At 8 and 10 yrs old, the kids are growing so fast, we wanted to capture those childish faces, favourite toys and hobbies before we move into the next phase. Initially it was to be just photos of the kids but in the end we decided to jump in too, to capture us all at this time.”

Good call, Rach. It’s really important to create professional memories that feature you as well, because I know personally I’m mostly absent from all the memories in my camera roll, just because I’m the one taking the photos! Memories of joyful family time and being together are what life is all about.

I always ask pre-teens to bring a few favourite things with them to a studio session. What they choose tells us a lot about who they are at this point in their lives and I often find the cuddly toy is still first choice even though the soccer ball and other ‘toys’ of older childhood feature too.

Big thanks to Rach and her family for letting me share their session. If you’d like to find out more about studio family sessions, CLICK HERE.