What I Actually Mean When I Say "Photos That Feel Like You” - Lifestyle Photography

There’s a photo on my wall of Saoirse.

She’s maybe seven or eight months old. Mouth wide open, hands clutched to her own chest like she’s trying to hold herself together. Full volume. Completely committed to whatever small catastrophe had just unfolded in her world.

I love it. It’s one of my absolute favourites.

Not because it was a good day — I genuinely can’t remember if it was or it wasn’t. But because that face? I saw it plenty of times during that stage. That specific brand of total devastation. The way she’d grab her own fingers when the feeling got too big for her little body to hold.

It’s not a pretty photo. But it’s so completely, undeniably her.

And that’s the thing about family photography that I think gets lost somewhere between the Instagram ads and the “say cheese” tradition.

The photos that get cried over are never the perfect ones

People come to me nervous. Worried their kids won’t cooperate. Worried they’ll look tired, or soft in the wrong places, or older than they feel on the inside. Worried the whole thing will be awkward and stilted and not at all worth the bother.

I get it. I really do.

Because I’ve been on that side of the camera too. Most of us have. And somewhere along the way we got the idea that a good family photo means everyone still, everyone smiling, everyone performing a version of themselves that’s a little bit tidier than the truth.

But I’ve never once had a client ring me in tears over a photo where everyone was perfectly posed and looking directly down the lens.

The ones that get them? Every time, it’s the in-between ones. The one where Dad is mid-laugh with his eyes closed. Where the toddler made a break for it and Mum is halfway between laughing and sprinting. Where someone is whispering something into someone else’s ear and you can’t quite tell if it’s a secret or a joke.

The ones that look like real life, because they are.

So what does lifestyle family photography actually mean?

It’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot, and I think it’s lost some of its meaning.

For me, lifestyle family photography in Auckland isn’t a style or an editing preset. It’s a way of working that says: I’m not here to make you look like a stock photo. I’m here to find what’s already there.

It means we move. We play. I’ll ask your kids to tell me their worst joke — and brace yourself, because my boy Ruairi has been road-testing his material on me for years and the quality varies wildly. We’ll wander, and chase, and I’ll ask you to tell each other secrets just to see what your faces do.

And you’ll forget, mostly, that I’m even there.

That’s the whole point.

Because the moment you stop performing for the camera is the moment the good stuff starts happening. The real squeeze. The forehead tip. The look you give each other when one of the kids does something that is absolutely mortifying and also completely brilliant.

That’s what I’m watching for. That’s what I’m trying to catch.

Where we shoot across Auckland — and why location matters less than you think

We’re spoiled here. The wild stretch of Muriwai or Te Henga at golden hour. The paddocks and big open skies of North West Auckland. Cornwall Park when the light goes all warm and amber in the late afternoon. Mission Bay on a Sunday when the kids are already sugared up and feral. All of it works.

What I’ve learned is that the location matters far less than the people in it. I’ve made beautiful images in suburban backyards and forgettable ones in stunning settings, because the setting was doing all the work and the family weren’t really there.

So we’ll chat about what feels like you. Where your family actually goes. Where the kids run free and no one is worrying about the furniture. That’s usually where the best photos live.

And the bit about being in the photos yourself

I know. I know.

Your arms. Your tummy. The bags under your eyes because it’s been that kind of year — or that kind of decade. The fact that you haven’t had a haircut since before lockdown and your “nice” clothes are from a previous chapter of your life.

I hear this from almost every mum I work with. And I heard it from myself, for years, while I took approximately four thousand photos of my three and appeared in roughly none of them.

But my kids don’t see any of that when she looks at the photos of us on the wall.

She sees me. Just me. Right there.

And that’s what your kids see too. Not the arms that you stress about being wobbly. Not the eyes you feel are too tired. Just you, loving them. And one day, that’s what they’ll want to hold in their hands.

That’s what lifestyle family photography is, to me. Not a genre. Not a look.

A way of making sure that when they look back, they can see all of you. The chaos and the quiet. The mess and the magic. The whole, real, wonderful thing.

Come and be in the photos.

Not sure which is right for your family? Check out Family Photography Experience or Petite Studio Sessions