Family Photography In Late Fall | A Morning Stroll And Sandwiches Indoors for the Ireton Family
/Lots of times I hear people ask, “what is the best time of year for family photos?”
The traditional answer is probably late spring or mid-fall.
But this isn’t a very traditional place, you know.
I’m of the opinion that literally any time of year can be a good time to take family photographs.
Because we documentary family photographers aren’t interested in what is happening in the background. No. We’re much more curious about what is happening in the foreground. What the people are doing.
I have conversations with people all the time who tell me, “there’s something different about your photographs. I can really FEEL the moments in them.”
And my usual response is to be truly grateful for those lovely words, of course. But also to explain: there’s a reason why you can feel the emotion in some photographs and not in others.
Because typically, in documentary photographs, people are being themselves. And humans beings by their nature are emotional beings. We show our emotions in our body language, in our facial expressions, in the way we gaze at one another.
So of course there is a fullness to this experience that is simply impossible to capture with traditional posed photographs.
This is where natural, candid photographs truly are better. They truly outshine the traditional studio photograph.
But enough about that.
Let’s get on to looking at some beautiful photographs of this family I photographed in the fall - LATE fall, mind you.
Most of the colours we typically associate with fall were long gone by then, but that didn’t stop us.
The real reason we got together was to capture the people in this family - and some of those people were just babies, and growing fast! So there was no time to wait until next fall, because then those babies would be toddlers, and walking around, and they would look entirely different!
We started off the morning at Anne-Marie’s and Art’s place. They’re the matriarch and patriarch of the family. They welcomes their children and their partners and kiddos and dogs with open arms.
In fact, when asked, “What are you most proud of when you look at your family?” Anne-Marie says,
Our special times together. Sometimes individually or all together. We are so proud of how well they get along and enjoy each other’s company.
We went for a stroll afterwards, in the beautiful ravine path they have just downstairs from their condo. Anne-Marie had asked that we take a few more formal family photos, and of course we did just that!
And Poppy, her adorable granddaughter, ran around through the paths, enjoying the fresh air in her cute little yellow raincoat.
Photographs are really important to this family. They make it a point to look over old photos and share stories of their family legacy this way. As do so many families.
Anne-Marie says, “We have a very large collection of photographs from over the years. It is a regular occurrence for one of the (adult) kids to go and pull out an album and reminisce on the time. One of our favourite pastimes.”
I hope you enjoy these photographs. I selected an assortment to show both the candid photos we took, and the more traditional family portraits.