Why You Should Have Family Photos Done

Family photos. Just reading the title may be enough to stop you right in your tracks.

I have toyed with writing this post a few times. I am not the best writer, though I used to enjoy doing it much more before children! But, I decided that a few of you would brave my writing skills, to read about this story I want to share.

A short time before Christmas, I received a phone call from a lovely lady who wanted to buy a gift voucher for her son. She wanted to buy him a family photo session, and was asking how she could go about it. After I explained everything, she told me something, a story I have heard before, a story of regret, and of sadness, and of hope.

She said that she knew maybe buying a photo shoot was an unusual gift, but she had lost her husband a few years before, and regretted that she had very few photos of him with the children, of them together, and none of him with the grandchildren. She told me that it was something they always thought of doing, but always put it off, because it was a luxury, because it wasn’t the right time, because maybe next time. And then there was no next time. So she said, she had decided that that would not happen to her son, and that she was going to buy him a session and a nice canvas, and that way she would know that there was at least one photo with all of them together.

It is a story that touched me, because I am so guilty, guilty of the same thing (I know, right?!) I hate being in front of the camera, I feel much more comfortable being behind it. I take pictures of the girls all the time, so many of them together and individually, and with daddy, though not as many of those. And with me? Not so much. I want to change that, and this year I will do my best to get in there with my girls, and finally have some family photos!

And that’s why you should too. Just do it. It is a luxury, true, but it isn’t for you, it is for your children, because one day that is all they will have, along with the memories. Get in the picture, capture your every day. Book a photographer. Learn to use your camera, teach your partner, be present. Be there.