Portraits of the heart

When I capture your family portraits, I capture your family but also your children on their own as well.

Its a fun afternoon where I force your family to spend a few hours with each other. I’ll make you enjoy each other, think on the the little things they all do that make you smile, try to get some not-so-kindy smiles out of them, and just fill your hearts with those that are nearest and dearest. After all, I want to capture that on camera, so I’ll bring it out as best I can.

When I go back and sit at my desk, I go through, and try to weed out those kindy smiles (opting to show you their smiles of the heart), I go through each image and decide if its good enough to hang on my wall. The longer I do this job, the less weeding out I do, let’s just call it experience.

Firstly I look at them as a grid – lots of images on my screen at once in Adobe Lightroom. At this view, I can see the ones I’m going to like straight away instinctively. Those I choose because my eye is drawn to them.

Then I go through them one by one. I go from image to image and see if there is anything making it not the perfect image I am looking for.

Occasionally, I have to stop, and catch my breath, and sometimes, try to hold back a little tear.

I can’t stop staring at the screen because I’m in awe of what I’m seeing, but amazed that I get to capture it. They chose me. There is nothing but gratefulness in my heart for those that allow me to do this.

I looked at this one for so long, and I remember pressing the shutter and knowing I would love it. Truth be told, I went looking for it, because I just knew it was there. There are so many things that to me are perfect. The light, her expression, the curl of her hair perfectly framing that beautiful little face. And in that moment I realise, I captured this one from the heart.

If you feel it in your heart, you know how much you were meant to capture it.