The importance of being IN the photographs
As a children and family photographer in Edinburgh, I have a message specifically for Dads. So listen up.
Gentlemen, please realise …
Look, you’ve probably got your phone in your hand, Or at least in your pocket. Don’t you?
And your phone’s got a camera on it, doesn’t it? Don’t tell me you’re a Luddite with a dumbphone brick. I won’t believe you. I know how much you geek out over tech.
So please, take more pictures of your other half
Yes, her! The mother of your children, the love of your life and all round superwoman who gives her all to hold it together for your family.
Because one day she’ll be gone and all your children will have left of her is memories. And over the years these memories will blur and fade, but when they see themselves in photographs with their mother, they’ll not only remember every detail of how she looked, but they’ll remember more clearly how she made them feel.
Take pictures of her whenever, wherever
Without warning. Without posing. That stuff doesn’t matter. Just photograph her …
- In the kitchen talking to your girl about her day
- When she’s giving the wee lad a piggyback down the stairs
- In a steamed up bathroom when she’s washing your girl’s hair
- When she’s lying half falling off your son’s bed reading him The Gruffalo for the five millionth time
- Explaining the five times table to the younger one
- Scratching her head trying to help the older one calculate molecular weight
- Picking cake mix out of the wee one’s her hair because the Kenwood exploded making your birthday cake
- Sitting quietly with the baby, because she’s exhausted
No make-up required
Even if she says her hair’s a mess and she needs to lose a few pounds.
Because when the children are packing their bags and moving away to college, this will all be forgotten about. And even if your heart’s not breaking at that point, hers will be.
Because when she’s gone, they’ll need to see how much love she had for them. And how silly she could be. And what her hands looked like, holding theirs.
And because the few selfies she’s taken with the children don’t show what was real, how she sat with them, how she played with them, how she interacted with them. How they all felt.
Don’t wait for her to ask you to photograph her, because she’s so busy and caught up in the moment she probably won’t
Mums, what do you think? Do you agree with this? Let me know in the comments or on my Facebook page.
