From Bump to Baby: A Salt Spring Island Family Photographer's Favourite Kind of Story
Some sessions stay with you. When Moonie and Masa first came to me, they were expecting their first baby, and there was this particular energy to that time, anticipation, tenderness, a life on the edge of completely changing. We made photographs together that I still think about.
Last night, about a year later, we got back together. Same two people, a baby boy now in the mix, and an entirely different chapter underway.
Looking back at the two sets of images side by side, I noticed my own work has shifted a little in that time too. Something quieter, maybe. I'm not sure I would have clocked it without these two sessions to compare.
This is one of my favourite things about being a Salt Spring Island family photographer, getting to work with people more than once. A single session gives you a moment. Multiple sessions give you a story. And it turns out they give the photographer something too.
Watching Moonie and Masa move from pregnancy into parenthood, seeing how they've settled into it, is exactly the kind of thing that reminds me why I do this work. Photographs at their best aren't about looking a certain way. They're about having something to return to — a record of who you were, what your home felt like, how your kid fit in your arms when they were brand new.
To Moonie and Masa: it's been a genuine pleasure. Looking forward to wherever the story goes next.
