The best gift for any mum...

I have been doing my very unscientific marketing reseach for the last year or so. Which was basically me talking to different mums I know about family photography sessions - how often they do it, why don't they do it, how would they choose a photographer once they have decided. At first surprising and then a sad trend is that most mums are waiting for something to happen before they book a session. To loose weight, to look better, to have more sleep, to feel happier about themselves....

I'm not an exception. I surely don't look like I did "pre children". Photos of me make me cringe and I usually delete 9 out of 10. But my girls like to ask me where was I when a certain photograph was taken. And I always say that I was taking the photo, of course! Which is a good reason, but always being behind a camera is not going to help them to remember me in their childhood.

I have been trying to change it and over the last few months I made sure we take photos using a timer, or handed the camera to my friends to take the photo for us. They are mostly of us during our adventures in muddy wellies, not looking very glamorous, running to the "spot" and looking at the camera and waiting for the timer. Nothing interesting, all of them are just snapshots, but to me these are priceless.

I am also planning a session with a professional photographer, I want to have what I give to my lovely clients as well. It's what becomes even more valuable as the time goes by, as the children grow! It's what I want to remember but I know I can't trust my memory because every time I see photographs even from a few months away I'm shocked how much they have changed and that I haven't noticed!

And with the Mother's Day just around the corner on the 10th of March - why not to give to a lovely mum you know, the mum of your children, your own mum, your sister a gift of a photography session? I have a limited amount of vouchers available, contact me if you are interested and if you have any questions!

P.S. Took me a couple of days after I wrote this blog post to actually press the "publish" button, but hopefully this will help some other mums to feel inspired to actually get in front of the camera!

Snow in Bristol

Now that it's back to +10 and rain again, I have finally completed a blog post about snow.

I can't belive just a week ago I was taking the girls to school on a sledge and now it's more like spring! But I have a very special feelings for snow, so wanted to make a blog post about it...

Seeing snow makes me so happy, I can't even express it. I was squealing with exhitement together with my girls when we first saw snow from a window. And then at night I stopped everything I was doing and just stared out of the window for ten minutes, admiring how snow completely transfers everything, even the nighttime by making it brighter. I was rewarded for it too -  I saw a fox casually walking down the path. Speaking about the windows - checkin  if the snowman is still there in the morning :)

Snow brings back so many childhood memories. Like being pulled on a sledge to my kindergarten, walking behind my mum's back during a snowstorm, hiding from the wind blowing the snowflakes in my face, skying, having a lunch next to campfire after skying. As a child, I got to have snow from October untill it melted only in April-May, it came with the crazy temperatures that I can't comprehend right now, when I complain about it being cold at 0C...! When everything is covered in snow for at least 6 months each year, snow is quite a big part of my memories. Of course, nothing stopped because of the snow, we still had to go to school at -50C and I remember sitting my the radio listening to the weather forecast and hoping it's -51C :).

A lot easier to get a day off school here! I know the snow has caused a lot of chaos for some people, but there are some nice things about everything stopping because of snow. Extra day off! Extra day to spend time with your family. So many people were out, pulling their kids on the sledges, building snowman, having snowball fights, making snow angels, sledging. Everyone looked so happy. I loved seeing people smile as I passed by them pulling my girls on the sledge. I can only compare the amount of people having a great time with their children to what you can see at a seaside on a hot summer day.

 

Snow is very tiring, we needed an energy boost -food for the kids, food for the ducks:

 

Oh snow, we miss you :) Nothing left but the photographs now, even the snowman has melted away!

Snow...

I can't even begin to tell you how much I was excited about all the snow! No snow last winter was very disappointing. Of course I took a couple (hundreds) of photographs in the last few days, most of them of us covered in snow and mud and being cold... Those are to come later, but here are just a few from a little playdate when we enjoyed a bit of beautiful unforecasted snow:

Photosession with a cutest baby boy!

What I love most about my job as a photographer is meeting new people -  I feel very priveledged every time when a family trusts me to photograph them in that time of their life. I always feel a great responsibility, because I know they will look back at the images that I have captured for them and it will help them to remember. In this case, to remember how their cute little boy looked as a 5 months old!

So charming, isn't he? But even more beautiful is the love you can see from his parents. I loved spending time with this little family and seeing how much they care for each other. I hope you can see a part of it though my photography:

Photography in January

It's not a secret that January is mostly a month for recovering from a crazy busy December, planning, organizing and updating website and blog, so all the admin work. Not my favourite! But all needs to be done...
One good thing about winter is that the sun sets very early. And the "golden hour" with the best light that comes around 8-9 pm at summer is around 3 pm during winter. So I ventured out for a quick little session with one of my favourite little models to air out her snowflake outfit.