A Day in the Life of the Johnson DiRinaldo Family | Visiting Brian "The Captain" Johnson's Family Home on Wolfe Island
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This was a really fun session with a really amazing family who have a cottage on Wolfe Island just a hop away from Kingston, on the ferry.
I've actually been photographing this family for quite a few years.
One of the first times was when Patrick and Kay were getting married, after which we did a "Day In The Life session” at their Cottage.....
The, last summer, they again invited me to photograph their family. They were going to do a small tour of wolf Island with Brian “The Captain” Johnson, who was born and raised on Wolfe Island, and who is the patriarch of this family. He and his entire family have a lot of memories there on Wolfe island. He was the captain of the Wolfe Island ferry for 26 years!!
He’s a celebrity around those parts, and simply overflowing with stories and history about the place.
Brian had just been going through some health issues, and he wanted to make sure that we took the time to relive some of his childhood memories, and to share these with his family. He wanted to take his two grown kids, and his granddaughters around Wolfe island, so that he can show them the house where he grew up, and tell them all the history of the place.
This is so important, because this is how family legacies grow and get passed down through the years. It's essential that we make time for retelling of family stories, sharing history, visiting all the places that were once meaningful to us and our ancestors.
That's exactly what we did that day with the Johnson-DiRinaldo family.
One of my favourite things to photograph with this family is the relationship these two sisters have (see photos below).
Their dynamic is awesome. Little G is so mischievous and clever; and big sister Ruby has infinite patience (and also some very adult faces to go along with that patience haha).
A day in the life session can be an entire day! And that’s pretty much what we did here. I was with this family for more than six hours, so we had lots of time to hang out and spontaneously capture whatever was happening.
In the backyard of the cottage is a wide opening right onto the lake. It’s a bit rocky here, but G had lots of fun hopping on the rocks in her sandals and beautiful red dress.
Close to the cottage are lots of trails, and one spot just down the road leads onto this little sandy beach. It’s a little less rocky here than behind the cottage, so walking into the water is a bit easier. The pups enjoyed the frolic into the water as well, and the girls enjoyed collecting pebbles and shells with their aunty and uncle.
When we’re walking from place to place, I’m always trying to think of just what I want to capture in the images. Yes, I can put my camera down, because on the face of it - not too much is happening.
But actually… there are things you can find, even in those “in between” moments. Like when people are walking from place to place.
Here are a few of those moments that we caught, without any kind of posing of course!
After that, we hung out at their cottage and had brunch.
Brunch with a bunch of people is really fun. It’s that cosy feeling you get in movies where the whole family gathers for pancakes. Everything smells delicious and maple syrup-y, and you eat and laugh. The dogs sit under the table, waiting for scraps or crumbs to miraculously fall down to them.
And Georgia bounces on the couch - she’s had enough pancakes already :)
Then, we then went for a little drive around the island.
I photographed the hay, which had been baled, and the gorgeous ochre glow of it all, under the tall windmills.
Not too long after that, we arrived at the main house we’d been wanting to photograph. This was Brian’s childhood home, where he was born and raised. Surprisingly, it hadn’t changed much, he said.
He told us about the layout of the property, some of which hasn't changed at all in the years since he had lived there. We went into an old garage and looked through some old items, including an old license plate that Brian recognized as belonging to the family.
We took a photograph of him standing in front of a garage, which was a very similar photograph to one he had from his childhood.
It was really interesting for Brian’s family to go on this special little journey around the island.
It was a pretty magical experience for me, too.
As a child, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ villages back in Bulgaria.
In the villages, there were old houses with so much history.
There were a lot of older people there, too, when I was a kid. Each house would have at least one grandmother or grandfather living there. Inside, it smelled of sheep’s cheese (feta or сирене) and yogurt (кисело мляко). It wasn’t my favourite smell in the world as a child, but now I long for it.
And all those elderly folks wondering the dirt streets of the village or sitting on porches - they all remembered my grandparents from when they themselves were all little.
There was so much history in those villages.
I’d walk around the village and everyone would recognize me not by my name but by who I was related to.
They would call out to me and say,
“Hey, you’re Gosho’s granddaughter, aren’t you?” (‘Gosho’ or Гошо was my grandfather, Giorgi’s nickname)
And there was a strange and wonderful sense of belonging in this.
The fact that everybody knew your family and the extended family to which you belonged, and was looking out for you in some way. The fact that you were connected to everything and everyone in the village, even if you didn't yourself know it.
As a child, I actually grew up in the big city of Sofia, with a population of over a million people.
But going back to the villages in summers always reminded me that I'm also part of something greater than myself but something smaller than the anonymity of the big city.
Visiting Wolfe island with Brian The Captain Johnson and his family last summer reminded me of the exact same feeling.
Of people knowing who you are, knowing that you belong there, recognizing your family, and accepting you unconditionally for it.
Toward the end of our journey during the Day in the Life with the Johnson family, we went to the Old House Museum, where they’ve installed a full body replica cutout of Brian. You know what I’m talking about? the kind of cutout where you go and stand and take a photo, with only your head showing?
The funny part about this is that the head of the cut out is actually at the Johnsons’ Cottage. We brought it with us on this trip, but we also made sure to capture everybody posing with the cutout body of the captain, inserting their own heads in the empty space above the neck, making silly faces.
I'm probably not explaining this correctly, but I feel like the photographs will show the actual story.
G holds the face cutout of that replica of her grandfather, who is sitting in the passenger seat.
The session was also part of my summer fundraiser for indigenous organizations. During the month of July, I donated 50% of my earnings from family photography straight to the Assembly of Seven Generations.
From this session alone, I donated $1500; and in total, I was able to donate over $2,300 in that month to this cause ❤️
So I’m taking a moment here to thank the Johnsons not only for such a wonderful day spent exploring Wolfe Island history and sharing it with me, but also for enabling me to donate to such a wonderful organization.
If you’re interested in documenting your wild family’s adventures in the course of a full day, then the Day in the Life package might be perfect for you!
We can do any combination of candid and group photographs, to make sure we capture exactly what is meaningful to your family, and preserve it as a lasting memory.