You know that moment when you're photographing your own kids (or in my case this also applies to some of my clients children too) and they say "no, you've already taken too many photos"? Well I don't think you can have too many photos of the ones you love and here's why... What if tomorrow you woke up and for whatever reason you could never see the people you love again, all that you have left are the moments inside your head, the memories and perhaps the photos, I think people faced with that dilemma would agree that there's no such thing as too many photos. I have to admit to being someone who's collected thousands of photos of my kids, pets and the people I love, I have occasional clips of video from when Looby was little and they're on Youtube, Looby and I were watching them the other day and it's just a magical wonderful thing to be able to relive those gorgeous moments.
We are the curators of our own history, never more has that statement been true, we live in a truly digital age where our children have a digital footprint so big that they will be able to look back to (in some cases) nearly every single day of their lives. Imagine when they're older and they have their Timehop app, we all think it's amazing because we can see what we were doing 5 or 6 years ago but in some cases our children will be able to go back to the moments they were born and announced to the world and then every day since. I understand why we worry about the digital footprints of our children but I also marvel at this wonder of the legacy we create in a truly digital age. I do at times I confess, worry about the lies we tell ourselves with the digitally curated history, will our descendants think we all had perfect houses/lives/relationships setting themselves up for failure by comparison or will they be so in tune with us digitally that they in turn curate an even more perfect digital legacy. I'm not one for photographing food but some people photograph every meal they have so in addition to the history of their family they're also building up a future history of the foods we ate and loved, a future almanac of sugar in some cases, haha!
I was in Edinburgh this week with Looby, a breakaway from all of the stress that surrounds us in our modern lives, time spent being able to switch off (well sort of) and time spent just being able to have fun and enjoy time with each other, I dread the day that Looby doesn't want to go on adventures with me, whilst she says she'll always take time for time out with mum I see her growing and changing with every day that passes, I see the beginnings of those teenage traits and I know it won't be too long before the teenage years step in and separate our minds for a while so I take each day as a precious thing and even during dinner on Thursday I managed to take just a few photos of Looby being Looby.
I'm lucky that I'm a photographer and I get to help others curate their own digital legacy, I've had people contact me and ask if I only photograph well behaved kids but it's not true, I just curate a gallery of images so lovely you'll think you had the most well behaved family in the world! (this also applies to misbehaving daddies).
This weekend I am offering mini session vouchers for just £20 instead of £25, they're valid pretty much forever so you can buy them now for yourselves and for presents for anyone else who might like to capture some memories and you can use them during summer or maybe in Autumn when the whole world entire seems to have photo shoots, the important thing though is just that half hour session will lead to beautiful precious memories you can save forever, the offer is valid until Midnight on Sunday and if you would like one or maybe more than one then all you need to do is contact photographer newcastle/email me/visit my facebook page
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