Year In The Life | The Timmerman-Veley-Halladay Family Spend Thanksgiving Morning at Lemoine Point
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This is a family you might have seen on my social media before, or maybe even on the blog.
You see, I've been following the Timmerman-Veley-Halladay family for a long time now.
I've been their family photographer for years, in fact.
You’re heard about family doctor, family dentist… family therapist… what else?
Well, family photographer :)
It’s when you find a photographer you can be comfortable in front of, and you have them back over and over to capture new memories for you, as your family grows and goes through all sorts of adventures.
(and as a consequence, the photographer’s heart sings! ❤️)
I photographed a wedding in the family, an engagement session, Christmases and gift exchanges, family gatherings, and so much more with these same folks. They’re practically like family to me, now!
This particular photo-session is part of the Year in the Life series (or YITL for short).
Year in the Life is a photography package which basically follows your family around for an entire year!
Actually, in this case, the pandemic made our Year in the Life more like Two years in the Life…. Which is perfect by me!
We had to work around the lockdowns and restrictions, and meet when we could.
That meant that a few months went by in between us seeing each other.
So I think the session you're seeing here is their fifth or sixth session, and they still have quite a few to go!
It was back in October, as you can see from the beautiful leaves. Actually, it was Thanksgiving weekend.
Working with his family is really easy, because they're completely comfortable being themselves in front of me.
They’re big lovers of candid photography.
They love it when we capture the authentic emotions on their faces, even if it means the occasional double chin.
(Cuz let’s face it - we all have those!)
Listen, being your true self, allowing yourself to feel true emotion on a photo shoot... It can be difficult.
Oh, I get it.
Especially the first time you are doing such a thing.
With more traditional photography, you have the safety of knowing the photographer’s job is to make you “look good”.
BUT!
I would argue that “looking good” to a documentary photographer is a completely different concept.
With candid photography, looking “good” means capturing some real aspect of YOU and your loved one; some real emotion; nothing faked. A true story. Nothing forced.
The art and beauty of such photographs can only emerge if it feels like a real moment.
And just look at the real joy on these folks’ faces.
Once you see this, you really get behind the spirit of photojournalism or candid family photography, even if it’s your first time seeing it.
It’s just impossible to imagine how this session could have been if it were all posed.
I mean, just try to imagine what kind of stories we would be telling if we were asking everybody to constantly look and smile at the camera.
In truth, we wouldn't be telling any stories at all.
Anyway this is what this family got up to on this particular day.
We met up at Rotary Park near the airport/Lemoine’s point, where we spent a couple of minutes at the playground.
After that we went to throw rocks in the lake.
I especially love the look on little Theo's face as he's gazing towards the water. He’s so curious, and we captured some of that innocent curiosity at looking over the edge of the dock into the water.
After that we went for a walk in the forest.
We thought, wouldn't it be fun if we threw some leaves up in the air?
And then we made it happen for a little bit. We didn't spend too long here though.
Theo got poked a little bit in the cheek by a little thorny bush, which didn't seem to upset him whatsoever.
After that we continued on walking, finding cool things like butterflies, birds and milkweed... Learning about nature from mom, dad, uncle or grandma - I remember doing the same thing as a child.
I remember how much my uncle loved all sorts of beetles and creatures, and he would tell me all about them when we spotted one.
These are such happy childhood memories, and I’m happy we got to create some of those photographs for Theo to see once he’s older.
A little personal aside on being too hard on yourself as a parent
We often do this thing where we see other people's photos on social media... say, for instance, of their family hiking on a trail somewhere... and then we compare.
More accurately, we immediately ask ourselves, "do I do that with my own kids? Should I be doing that?"
And look, maybe hiking is really what you want to do more of.. that's cool.
But one thing to remember is that you don't need to go all in.
It doesn't have to be all or none.
For instance, even if you can’t get out for a hike every weekend, or even once a month - then do it once a year!
In other words: your children will remember fondly that ONE time you went somewhere, even if you didn’t make it into a ritual. Because we’re all busy as parents, and I know how enticing it is to see a family doing an activity like this family here in this blog… and wonder - “am I doing enough of this with my own kids? Should we suddenly take up hiking together? Every weekend?”
And my take is: no. That’s not realistic. If you’re already struggling to find time for family activities, then simply plan to do a new activity just once if you can. :)
Start there.
Now back to the blog!
This session was basically me following this family around during their hike and adventures at Lemoine point, and this is exactly what it should be: the family enjoys their time together, and I turn their moments into long-lasting memories for them.
At one point Theo wanted to go into the water, which was actually just a big muddy mess on the shore.
Luckily Grandma rescued him in time!
Grandmas have very quick instincts about this kind of thing.🤩
We did stop to take a nice family photo under a gorgeous willow tree, because it just seemed like the perfect spot. And why not? If everyone is feeling up to it, and no one is crying haha.
Then we found this amazing huge tree on one of the trails and everybody took turns climbing it. It was pretty tall, but the climbers made it look easy!
Some of my favourite photographs are these of Theo and mom having a little cuddle and a kiss. It was just too cute of a moment not to include here!
Of course, it wasn’t just about mom and grandma - Theo spent some really fun time with daddy as well.
After Rotary Park we headed over to one of the families’ houses for Thanksgiving. There there was a lot of playtime, some snacks, and some catching up and good chatting in the backyard.
A single “Year in the Life” session is just one of 12 sessions.
That means that there's never really any pressure to get anything specific done. You're not really trying to cram all your special activities into one session, and so you can be free to enjoy exactly what you love to do without any kind of stress.
Year in the Life photography packages are perfect for families that have children who are growing quickly – toddlers, infants, or even teenagers. Because we follow your family for a whole year, we get to notice the changes once you look back at all the galleries together.
When I first started photographing Theo, he was just a little baby. He wasn't walking or anything.
Actually, I photographed Theo being born! It was an incredible experience!
So, watching him grow and photographing it has been pretty amazing.
Anyway, this year in the Life Family hopefully inspired you to go out and capture some family memories of your own.
You know, you don't need a professional photographer to capture your memories for them to mean something.
But if you want to include yourself in the photos from time to time, one of the best ways to do that is to book a family photographer who specializes in documentary or candid photographs, like me!
Most parents who book a documentary session with me do it because they’re the one normally taking all the photos of their families. And they soon realize that they’re not in any of the photos!
These candid sessions are never stressful.
If you're apprehensive at the beginning, this apprehension is normal. But the interesting thing is that it will quickly fade away once you realize just how much fun you're about to have.
If you're wondering what to do on your session, the only right answer is - whatever feels good to you.
Heck, for my own family session we just ended up shooting guns in the forest! We’re a funny family like that - we love guns and we love animals. We live on a farm, but don’t eat any of our animals. We eat mostly vegan, and we shoot only at targets like pop cans or printed bullseyes you can purchase at the store. So for our session, we did some shooting, and then we fed our goats and sheep a few treats.
Hopefully you can see that you can do literally anything you want, as long as you're having fun and it's not something you're doing just because you feel that that's what you need to do. Because there are no rules in documentary family photography.
The only rule is “Just have fun and be yourselves!”
And now I leave you with a few images from Lemoine’s Point, which is a fabulous place to take your family for a nice hike right in the city of Kingston!
