come as you are | charlene + emma

finally.  getting caught up with a few drafts that have been waiting eagerly to be shared!  with all the mom-friends from past and present booking these Come As You Are Sessions, it was a lovely surprise to have a family member call me in to capture her early motherhood days.  i come from a big family, with six aunts/uncles on each side of my family.  Char was one of the first of our generation and therefor was always looked up to, always harassed, and one whose lap was often occupied by a wiggly younger cousin with a bony-butt.  She was always generous and kind to us and I feel like all that patience must have paid off now that she is a Mother.  Capturing someone after a life-time of family get-togethers, through so many joyful births and heartbreaking losses took the meaning of this session to a new level for me.  We can choose our friends, but we can't choose family, so I'm so grateful to have had such a caring, thoughtful and supportive cousin in my life and so happy to have been able to give back with these photos.

Congratulations on having the sweetest little girl!
You guys are doing a great job

xo

 

Family Session with Baby Astrid

Throwing Back this beautiful Thursday to one of my favourite family sessions to date!  They aren't actually old, but I haven't had the opportunity to post them til now almost 2 months later...  No time like the present.  Shannon came in contact with me back in the winter for some Family Photos after seeing Holiday Session photos of Hanna + Ben, kidlets of her good friend Kate.  Keeping in theme with capturing the ordinary day to day, I couldn't love these photos any more!  I love that they chose to be in PJ's for this lazy morning session, these honest choices will ring louder and sweeter in a year's time (and year after year following...) as Baby Girl Astrid grows into a cuter buttercup.  Like Joon + Callum's session, these photos will not just capture the early family love, but capture their first home together as a family before they move this summer.

Enjoy! 

 

come as you are | Sarah Jack + Eli

i really would have loved to start this series off with this session but it was a few days following the other two and i really needed to jump onto editing them before getting too overwhelmed.  Last year, I booked a session with Jayme Anne Photography for Mother's Day.  I loved them so much, I am booked again for the end of May!  I was so inspired by her Project Motherhood series to get MOMS in front of the camera, I decided to also contribute to getting more Moms in front of the camera.  Sarah, however, was the one that pushed me to really focus on the real deal, the maybe-not-picture-perfect-enough-for-Instagram deal.  her words, which i wrote down were:  "meeting moms where you are at, we don't need you to get dressed, clean the house or put on make up..."  this spoke deeply to me because, honestly, that is the photography i started out with.  ithe introduction of Instagram and Pinterest really changed our perceptions of normal as we were suddenly being inundated with everyone's highlight reel and strugginlg not to compare it to our normal.  we are expected to do EVERYTHING, be EVERYTHING, and never falter, never sweat, never show weakness.  that kind of expectation is debilitating and unrealistic.   

...so!  i'm trying to get back to that rawness and honesty, and what better time than in celebration of Mother's Day!  the rawest of the raw.  it has truly been a breath of fresh air!  in spite of how these first three sessions differ SO GREATLY from one another, i love how they still manage to praise the Mother and her story with equal respect and recognition that she, indeed, is doing her best to selflessly love her kids no matter how insecure she may be feeling, no matter how tired she is from whatever issues she may be losing sleep over, no matter what her current struggles may be...  i love that by showing a variety of Mothers in their everyday environment, moms will be able to relate in an honest way with one another and close the gap created by the highlight reels of social media.  by recognizing and exonerating the beauty of Motherhood's everyday imperfections, i hope to encourage a greater sense of empathy and support within community.  we have lost the village mentality.  we need to rebuild that!

this session was awesome because Sarah wanted to capture her morning with the boys.  it was an early wake-up call to arrive at 7am, but it was absolutely worth it.  as it was a Sunday, they were able to enjoy a slow quiet morning without the hectic chaos of the school routine.

eventually, as you will see, Sarah will get to enjoy her cup of tea.

enjoy!

Sarah, what a treat to spend the morning with you and your boys.
Thank you for welcoming me into your home and life.

xo


come as you are | Saara Leila + Millie

 

These are the most beautiful pictures.
You captured every mundane moment and pulled every ounce of beauty from it.

Nick and I both got so emotional over these.
It's like, all the worrying and sleeplessness and feeling pathetic ARE worth it
when I see it from your eyes, from their eyes.

This is beyond anything I could have imagined.
You just gave me so much.  Again.  To be able to give these to the girls one day.

You've seen me at my worst.  And now to see these moments, to share them with you.
Thank you from the deepest part of me, with so much joy and gratitude.


~ Saara C.


It sounds like I did my job.

This session was very close to my heart.  There are so many women that I have become friends with in our little town, all of which I would love to honour with these sessions, but I have to admit that receiving the text request to do Saara really made my day.  She was the first Mom I met when we moved back here in 2009 when Moses was 5 months and her daughter Leila was 11 months.  We were both first time moms, desperate for company, visiting one another's homes numerous times a week for sanity.  In the last 7 years, I've witnessed her struggle as a single mom, seen her through many ups and downs.  To see her now, remarried to a truly wonderful kind-hearted soul and blessed with another gorgeous little child, it means the world to me that she has found happiness.

At the end of this session, I acknowledged all this, and we both had a good cry and a hug on the bottom of her stairs in her new home.

I love you, Friend.
You deserve every last drop of this love + happiness.

xo