One of the best parts of my job is meeting new people—I love hearing people’s stories and learning about who they are and what they like. When I got an e-mail from Jill asking about a family shoot, she mentioned that she and her husband have two very energetic little girls. “They’re a handful, but we love just sitting back and seeing their personalities develop, thinking about the women they’re becoming,” she wrote.
That was at the forefront of my mind when we met at Mount Pleasant Nature Park for their session—to capture the girls in all their childlike exuberance and the joy their mum and dad felt in this season of parenthood. Both Jill and her husband are teachers, so it wasn’t surprising that they’d raised two such adorable, affectionate, active little girls! They were so much fun and such a pleasure to work with, and I was thrilled to learn that the feeling was mutual. Jill wrote me the kindest e-mail later, saying, “You put our whole family at ease and made sure that our pictures were representative of our family life.” That’s my greatest ambition as a photographer—to let the people I take pictures of see themselves as they want to be seen—and it was a joy to do that for the Telfer family.
