You Never Get to Choose When the Photos Stop

If you've ever booked a session with me and wondered why I care so much about getting your family in front of a camera, not just the kids, all of you, together, this is why.

The day everything changed

I grew up watching my dad run Davies Refrigeration. He was quiet, hardworking, a real tinkerer. The kind of dad who'd hand his teenage daughter the business phone and teach her how to answer it properly. Steady. Present. The kind of person you just assume will always be there.

Then, when I was eighteen, he was killed in a motorbike accident.

I remember exactly where I was sitting. At my grandparents' round kitchen table. My auntie came in through the back door, through the kitchen, in a hurry, and just said it straight out. "Your dad's dead, darl." I ran outside screaming, and right at that moment the police pulled up. They'd already been to tell my brother, who was home alone.

And my mum. My mum was in a coma in a Melbourne hospital and didn't even know yet. Didn't know her husband was gone. We all flew down to Melbourne together the next day, not knowing what she'd wake up to. My pop was an absolute saviour through all of it, he'd had money put aside for emergencies exactly like this, and it meant we could just go, straight away, without having to think twice about it.

Honestly, so much of that time is a blur to me now. But I still remember crying all night, not sleeping at all.

That one day split my family apart. In ways we're honestly still carrying, if I'm being real with you.

And in amongst all of it, the grief, the chaos, everyone just trying to hold it together, I remember reaching for photos of my dad. And realising how few we actually had.

You don't think to take the photos when you assume there'll always be more time.

History repeating, quietly this time

Years later, I found myself doing a version of the exact same thing. Just not quite how you'd expect.

I did take photos of my kids when they were little. I've got them, and I'm grateful for them. We had a few family photos too, back when they were young, but not nearly as many as I would have loved. Even just something simple, like an annual family photo, would have meant everything now. And it's really the last five years or so where that's caught up with me. Life gets busier, the kids get bigger, and somehow it just kept not happening as often as I wanted.

We did manage to get debutante photos with my eldest a few years back, and I'm so glad we did. But that's the exception, not the rule. And now my kids are older, trying to get everyone together for a proper family photo feels next to impossible.

The lesson, from two different directions

Losing my dad taught me you don't get to choose when the photos stop. It can be taken from you in a moment, no warning at all.

Not having enough family photos with my own kids taught me something quieter, but just as real. Even without tragedy, the window still closes. It just closes slowly enough that you don't notice how much you've missed until it already has.

Both of those losses point to the same truth, really.

You never get to choose when the photos stop. So take them now, while you still can, because the version of your family that exists today will never exist again.

Why this matters to you

This is why I don't let people put off booking a session until things settle down, or until they lose a bit of weight, or until the kids are older. Things don't settle down. And older doesn't mean better, it just means different. And eventually, gone too.

I can't get back the photos I don't have of my dad. And I can't get back those years where I wish we'd stopped more often, just once a year even, to get everyone together.

But you can still get the photos of your family exactly as they are right now, together. Today. This version. This age. This moment that will never come around again.

That's the whole reason I do this.

If this resonates with you, let's talk about capturing your family's moment.