London Ontario Family Photographer | Fall Woods Minis

Fall Minis are officially open for booking, which means it’s time to look bak on last years Fall sessions in the woods. I don’t specifically plan my Fall minis around trees with changing leaves (They’re either way up high in a mature tree or on the ground, which means that anything other than a wide shot gives me a tree bark background - not my favourite ;) ). Instead I am a sucker for golden, overgrown grasses and Autumn wildflowers. I loves these sessions and cannot wait to be back in this same location for Fall Minis again this year.

London Ontario Family Photographer | Flower Farm Mini Sessions

Booking for this year’s Flower Farm Minis is opening up to the advance notice list in a couple of days, which means it’s time to reminisce about last year’s sessions!

I’d been wanting to shoot on a flower farm for awhile, and last year I was finally able to make it happen on Harris Flower Farm’s beautiful property. There’s nothing quite as vibrant and whimsical as a field of flowers, and I am so excited to be shooting here again soon.

Here are some favourites from last year’s sessions!

(To be added to the mini session advance notice email list, email sophie@rawfootagephotos.com, subject line “advance notice minis”.)

London Ontario Family Photographer | Silly Backyard Extended Family Session

Extended family sessions are always interesting because there are so many different dynamics at play - between adult siblings, between children and grandparents, between cousins, etc. The thing that stands out to me about this particular extended family session was how fun, silly and laid back it was. And when I say silly, I mean funny face, fake moustache level of silly. Scroll down to the bottom to see what I mean!

London Ontario Family Photography | Fall Family Session

I always say this, but I love getting to know families over time. This was my 2nd session with this gorgeous family (we’re up to three now, slowly catching up on my blogging!), and it’s so fun to see Cole growing up over the years. Such a handsome little dude, and such a beautiful family. Here are some favourites!

Best of 2018 Family Sessions | London Ontario Family Photographer

I wish you could have seen me putting this blog post together. First of all, it took a very long time. But most importantly, I smiled from ear to ear the entire time. So many beautiful families. So many favourites. So many. Some obvious ones that I previewed on social media and were stand-out favourites from the very beginning, and some that I had completely forgotten about, that for some reason didn’t really grab me during the editing process but made my heart sing during this yearly review.

As always, I feel the need to point out that my initial selection was so large it was ridiculous. In fact, one might argue that this selection is ridiculously lengthy. But I can only narrow them down so much, ya know? At the end of the day, whether a session appears in this compilation or not, I am so eternally grateful to each family that trusted me with capturing their memories - some for the first time in 2018, and some for the 8th time. It sounds so cliche, and we photographers like to throw around phrases like “I want to tell your story” and “capture your milestones” and “document your real life”… but it’s the truth. It’s why I do what I do.

Looking through all of these images made me so excited about the upcoming shooting season. For now though, I’m still reminiscing about the incredible year that was 2018. Here are some favourites!

Best of 2018 Newborn Lifestyle Sessions | London Ontario Photographer

I’m continuing my 2018 reminiscing this week with my favourite images from newborn lifestyle sessions - both in-home and in-hospital. I love capturing fresh babies in this simple, unobtrusive, organic way - in their element, surrounded by family, no frills. You’ll see lots of sibling interactions featured here as well, sometimes without the new baby present. I chose to include these images, as they are such a big component of newborn lifestyle sessions involving older siblings. Often while baby is being fed or soothed by one parent, the other parent is hanging with big brothers and/or sisters, and those candid interactions are just as precious. In these instances, I find myself travelling between rooms, capturing the quiet soothing in one and the enthusiastic play in the other. Here are my 2018 favourites.

London Ontario Family Photographer | The Agyem Family

Sometimes family sessions with teenage/adult children can be a bit more of a challenge in terms of capturing candid interactions and real emotions. With little ones, there’s a lot of snuggling and ticking and playing and swinging that inevitably produces lots of smiles and giggles and moments. I know when I’m photographing a family with older kids that I will need to work a bit more to encourage natural, candid interactions. All of that to say that when I met the Agyem Family, I was blown away by the effervescent joy they exuded and the funny, sweet interactions they had with one another. We did not stop laughing, joking and playfully teasing throughout the entire session, which made it easy to capture their beautiful spirit during our session. I loved hanging out with them and am so happy to finally be sharing some favourites on the blog today.