My Families | NY In Home Family Photography

When I first started at NY in home family photography almost five years ago, I knew that I enjoyed capturing real moments in a family’s history.  I had realized early on with my own kids that plopping toddlers on white backdrops in matching sailor suits once a year wasn’t going to be the way I wanted to  chronicle my own family’s life.  There’s nothing too terribly real about that (although I do have a cute photo I’ll show you some time — I almost think about it as the seed from which LYYP sprouted, but I definitely had no idea of that at the time).   Eventually, I came to think that hey, there must be other people out there who had an interest ‘seeing’ their family in the way I wanted to see mine.

I was right.  (Hooray!)

I am lucky, and so, so blessed to have found (or been found by) many, many families over the last five years who want to see their own families right now as they are.  Not how the photographers at Sears’ Photo Studio made them look, but how they really are.

These families are the reason I’m able to do what I love, and why I’ve been doing it for almost five years.  They’re the reason I’m booked months in advance, as they schedule their next session when we sit down to do the ordering for the present one.  They take it seriously.  They know how fast things change.
They protect their session dates for months.  They plan for how their session might go and put some thought into what details they want to capture, but leave plenty of room for deviation from the plan so that both parents and kids can wander about, following their whims and noses to whatever might happen that day.
They allow me to develop relationships with their kids that make it possible for me to understand each kid’s personality.  To recognize the real.  To know when (and how) I should try to coax a hearty laugh, and when I should accept that the serious face (or the pouty face or the moody face or the sweet, shy face) is a much better memento of this chapter of their lives.  (Ohmygosh — remember in my last post when I told you about my new favorite thing with new walkers?  Here it is again!)

They invite me into their homes and let me chat them up and make them feel at ease so that I can capture them loving their babies the way they do when I’m not there.

Yeah, I’m feeling reflective on this beautiful summer day, and I’m so, so grateful to families like this.

As I’m sure you’ve figured out, these guys are not LYYP first-timers.  Our first session was back when baby sister first came home from the hospital.  Since then, we’ve filled pages and pages of storybook albums with moments and memories of their family playing, growing and loving.  Because yeah, it’s about seeing it now, but it’s also about remembering it later.  (Here’s where I stop and belt out, “Wherever time may take you in your life, remember this was beautiful.” And you find yourself grateful that you’re reading a blog post and not listening to me sing live.  You’re welcome for that).

You can see highlights from all of them if you go HERE and  click on through.

Thanks for looking!

~Jaye

NY In Home Family Photography

Remember this was beautiful.