Mini Day In The Life With an Ottawa Family | Pancakes, Toys, and Playing in the Park with Olivia, Chris, and Their Two Kids
/I’ve got a really sweet photo story to share with you today: it was a documentary family session I photographed in Ottawa a few weeks ago.
This family was about to make an epic move: from Ontario to Saskatchewan!
So, they were just about ready to pack everything up and put it in boxes. We booked in the sessions as soon as we could possibly squeeze it in (on a Monday!), so that we could get some photographs of important things before they were all packed up.
Here’s what we talked about capturing:
a photo of their son, Nathan, jumping on the bed. (like that song, “five little monkeys…”. The mattress was about to be packed away, so we HAD to make this happen fast, or there would be no photograph of it.
family mealtime, likely breakfast, as I was going to arrive there in the morning, so that our session would end before Charlotte’s afternoon gymnastics camp.
playing in the park: this family had not one but TWO gorgeous parks in walking distance of their home, one of them with a splash pad. So we planned to photograph that!
Olivia’s home-office space. The pandemic forced many of us to reconstruct and re-purpose spaces in our homes into working spaces. Since they were about to pack up everything in this covid-era office, Olivia wanted just a snap or two of her working, so she would always remember the changes the pandemic brought.
Meeting up with the family in Ottawa at 9am
I love road trips!
This one was no exception.
I’m not a SUPER early riser, but in the summer on the farm, our roosters crow from about 4am, so waking up before 7am is easy. I was already on the road by 7, with my almond milk cappuccino from Timmies 😜 (yes, they make one now, and it’s not half bad!)
When I arrived in Ottawa, it was already a hot day!
The kids were waking up and watching some morning cartoons, so I just got down on their level and started chatting and snapping some photos of the two of them.
They were so cute.
I took a photo of Nathan’s toes, because they were adorable and chunky, and I miss that - and one day Olivia will miss that in her little kiddo. So… toes photo!
The kids warmed up to me so easily and quickly! I find that this tends to happen (especially if mom and dad aren’t around). Haha, I couldn’t tell you why, but even when someone tells me that their kiddo might take a while to warm up, usually that’s not the case! (unless the parent is watching… it’s almost like the kids can feel their parents projecting their own insecurities and anxieties…)
HOT TIP: if you are anxious about your kid warming up to the photographer, just give us a few minutes alone in the playroom or the kitchen or anywhere… I bet we’ll strike up the best conversation, or just figure out a way to coexist happily without ANY problems :P By the time you come back into the room, we’ll likely be photographing some kind of toy or jumping stunt. I promise!
After the TV-watching, Nathan ran over to help dad with the pancake breakfast. He chopped up the strawberries diligently, while in the other room, his older sister Charlotte started building the world’s tallest tower made from magna tiles.
The colours of her dress and the tiles… it was almost enough to make my colour-loving brain explode. I took so many photographs of this little girl, wrapped up in her tower-building, attention focused on each tile…
There’s a photo of her toes in there somewhere, too! haha. LIttle kids’ feet are the cutest! I especially liked how her toes curled around the bookshelf when she climbed up to reach the top of her epic tower.
Then everyone sat down to eat.
It was delicious.
And while I don’t really want to make anyone uncomfortable with taking too many eating photos, I DO want to preserve some of the magic of togetherness during family meals.
So I snapped a few photos from different angles, so that the family could relive this moment one day, when the kids are much older.
Once the pancakes were devoured, it was time to head to the nearby park!
Nathan zoomed off on his push bike, and Charlotte ran… much faster than I could!
I eventually caught up with them, and for the next hour or so, we took all sorts of photos of the kids at play: on the jungle gym, in the splash pad area… picking berries (they were edible, which I didn’t know, and the kiddos filled their tummies)…. Bonus points to anyone reading this who can identify what these berries are called!
Candid photographs at the park can be a challenge if you’re not used to it. Why? Because parks are wide open spaces, and kids love to run from one place to the next. Which means that it’s easy to get a bunch of photographs where the kids are just a blur, or they’re really tiny off in the distance.
You have to KNOW what you’re doing 😜 Like I do. haha.
Anyway, after the park, we returned home to get a few more photos at home (and to get that photo of Olivia in her home basement office.
It was then lunchtime, and I left the family to have their lunch and enjoy their afternoon.
All in all, it was a gorgeous candid family session with this family of four.
And yes, we did stop to take a more traditional group photo of the family sitting on their front porch, because OF COURSE we can 😊
I got them to tickle each other because I could tell Nathan was getting tired or maybe a wee bit “hangry”… so he needed a good tickle to bring out that sweet smile.
I loved spending time with this family, and taking photographs of them enjoying their ordinary life’s moments… those candid moments they’ll one day look back at and relive.