A Year in the Life: Watch This Family Grow Before Your Eyes 🥳

I’d like you to meet the Timmermans.

Ok, more accurately, it’s the Timmerman - Veley - Whalen - Petticrew family (from hereon known as TVWP family), since they are a big bunch of two extended families ❤️

They are the wonderful family who has most recently booked my Year in the Life package.

… and since many of you don’t know what it’s all about, what better way to explain than to show you, with photos!

🙌 all the way at the bottom, you’ll see which was one of this family’s favourite photos & read why 🙌

Photographing a family for an entire year 🎉

I’ve photographed these folks many times over the years.

First when Sam & Steve got engaged. 💍

Then when they got married.👰🤵

Then for two Christmases in a row 🎄🎁

And then, when their baby was born. 👶

So to say that I’ve come to know and love them wouldn’t be an understatement.

Being this familiar and comfortable with a family is obviously an added bonus: we can plan and daydream their upcoming sessions with a great understanding of what they are looking to capture. And they can relax and enjoy their real lives and trust me to do the work of documenting it properly.

But to be fair… I’ve felt really welcomed by them right from the beginning.

So when they reached out this summer to inquire about the “Year in the Life” package (lovingly known as YITL), I was obviously stoked.

Creating memories once a month, every month for an entire year, is as unique as each family, and this family is as unique and awesome as they come.

I’m going to show you some of their photos, but also take you through how the Year in the Life typically works.

If you’re curious how it all works, then read on. If you’d like to just see the pretty photos, scroll ahead.

How Planning Year in the Life Sessions Works

Although there’s lots of months in a year (twelve, to be precise!), time can fly by and before you know it, a new year has begun. So when starting a “Year in the Life” series with a family, it’s important to be intentional about planning things.

Firstly, what does your family love to do?

We’ll be capturing memories that are going to become cherished family keepsakes, for decades. They’ll be shared and printed and hung up on the walls, and adored, and laughed about. They’ll bring family together, and remember those who made your family what it was…

That’s why I always encourage families to think about all the things they enjoy, think about the seasons, the activities they normally do, and do a rough outline of the year.

The first three sessions for the TVWP family are as follows: September - apple picking; October - pumpkin picking + carving + bonfire; November - decorating for the holidays;

I’m excited to learn what the rest of the year will bring, but the first three months are already pretty jam-packed!

Who can you invite?

My take on family is: the more the merrier. Now, as a photographer, it becomes definitely more of a challenge to photograph multiple people in a given session, so that’s why planning is even more important. There is never an extra charge for additional family members if we’re doing a documentary session.

The length of time must be adequate to capture each person, however.

Each of the Year in the Life sessions are two to three hours long, which means we have plenty of time for each person in a large family of up to 15 people. Any more than that, and we would have additional challenges! Like, how to fit that many people into any place :)

How this family’s first session went

For the first session of their Year in the Life series, we went to Wynn Farms to pick apples.

The kids then wandered into the pumpkin patch, after which we all did the corn-maze, and then ate candied apples. Finally, they spent quality time on the grass together before getting into their vehicles and heading home.

I’ve selected some of my favourite photographs from that day.

Two of this family’s favourite photographs…

And now, as promised, I’m going to reveal the photograph(s) that this family chose as one of their favourites. It’s not a smiling one, and there’s a good reason for that.

This young girl was sad during the corn maze, because she was in one group that got separated from the main group of people. She was also just a bit tired after picking apples for a couple of hours. So even though she was sad, I got a couple of photos of her mums consoling her.⁣
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When I did the photo reveal with this family, from their "Year in the Life" session, do you know what they told me?⁣
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They said, "We're so glad you captured this photo."⁣
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Because it is part of their real life. It is part of life with an autistic child, and it is part of their daily care routines. Comforting their daughter with tenderness and patience is a part of their mothering. So absolutely it is crucial to capture this.⁣

The images above might not be part of a traditional family photography session, but they’re sure part of real life. This is why families are turning to documentary photography more and more: we are all yearning to capture the real moments of our lives that shaped us and our children.

One day, these photographs become great discussion pieces and memory triggers. Also, notice the details in the background of the people wearing masks on the second photograph. One day, when this girl is all grown up, she might ask her mothers to tell her the story behind these photos, and it will also be a story of 2020, and how the world still went on and families enjoyed apple picking in the fall, despite the strange times we lived through.

This is what family keepsakes are all about: conversation, memories, and an awareness of your legacy and place in the world 🥰

Would you agree with this? Write me a comment below - I love hearing from all the readers of this page.

And if you’ve never considered family documentary photography, I wonder: has this blog changed your mind a little bit?