I loved spending time with this fun-loving extended family for their woodsy session in the Westminster Ponds conservation area back in 2019. My favourite with these sessions is always documenting cousins playing and grandparents loving on their grandchildren. Lucky me, each of these individual families has since gone on to book family and newborn sessions, and I’ve had the joy of staying in touch and continuing to document their growing families.
I met up with Julia and JP’s family, as well as Julia’s parents and sister, for a beautiful Spring blossom extended family session. It was a chilly May morning, but the magnolia blossoms were in full bloom. Here are a few favourites from their Springbank Park session.
After several family mini sessions and even a newborn session with this gorgeous family, it was so great to see them again for a 3-generation extended family session surrounded by beautiful Fall colours. Here are some favourites!
I absolutely loved this extended family session. My favourite part? Ring Around The Rosy with Grandma and Grandpa! I’m so glad we captured so many fun candid and playful moments in addition to the many different posed groupings. Here are some favourites!
I met this beautiful family while working with Jen and Blake for their wedding. It was such a joy to reconnect with them for this extended family session, split between the golf course and the rocky beach in Goderich. I have such fond memories of Jen’s father’s kindness and humour, and I know he is deeply missed and fondly remembered by many. I am finally catching up on some blogging and wanted to share some favourites from this session that is close to my heart.
Today on the blog, I want to share highlights from three different extended family sessions. These shoots are great for families that want to get that elusive large group photo on that one day of the year that everyone is visiting at the same time. It’s also a great time to get a ton of smaller groupings, like adult siblings who haven’t had a photo together since childhood, or all of the cousins together. On top of that, each individual couple/family can have their own mini session with a few photos of their own little crew. These images truly become like a time capsule for these families, and in some instances, go on to provide comfort after loss. I think my favourite part of these shoots is watching grandparents really delight in their grandchildren. It’s always a blast! These three sessions were all very different, with one taking place in a backyard, one in the woods, and one at Civic Gardens. Here are a few highlights from each of these shoots!
This was such a lovely extended family session at Civic Gardens. You can almost feel the warmth on this sunny day!
It rained all morning, and we almost cancelled. But I’m so glad we didn’t, because despite some muddy trails and wet grass, we had such a lovely time capturing some extended family photos in the woods. One of my favourite things about these sessions is watching grandparents interacting wth their grandkids, and this shoot was no exception. Scroll down to see what I mean!
Extended family sessions are always interesting because there are so many different dynamics at play - between adult siblings, between children and grandparents, between cousins, etc. The thing that stands out to me about this particular extended family session was how fun, silly and laid back it was. And when I say silly, I mean funny face, fake moustache level of silly. Scroll down to the bottom to see what I mean!
I wish you could have seen me putting this blog post together. First of all, it took a very long time. But most importantly, I smiled from ear to ear the entire time. So many beautiful families. So many favourites. So many. Some obvious ones that I previewed on social media and were stand-out favourites from the very beginning, and some that I had completely forgotten about, that for some reason didn’t really grab me during the editing process but made my heart sing during this yearly review.
As always, I feel the need to point out that my initial selection was so large it was ridiculous. In fact, one might argue that this selection is ridiculously lengthy. But I can only narrow them down so much, ya know? At the end of the day, whether a session appears in this compilation or not, I am so eternally grateful to each family that trusted me with capturing their memories - some for the first time in 2018, and some for the 8th time. It sounds so cliche, and we photographers like to throw around phrases like “I want to tell your story” and “capture your milestones” and “document your real life”… but it’s the truth. It’s why I do what I do.
Looking through all of these images made me so excited about the upcoming shooting season. For now though, I’m still reminiscing about the incredible year that was 2018. Here are some favourites!
