Giving Family photography as a mother’s day gift…

As I’ve worked on my MFA, and leaned into specialising my research around motherhood and photography, over ninety percent of the women I’ve talked to have told me that the way they value photography has increased significantly since they became a parent. 

That being said, for many, it has always been important - they remember family photography as a way they pieced together their own story, pouring over old photo albums pulled out of cupboards. Now after becoming mums themselves, they think of their own children and the images they’ll have to carry forward. From the many conversations I have had with other mums, I’m in little doubt that so many of us are taken by anticipatory nostalgia as we watch our kids right now. Whilst we’re busy wishing so many things for them, we’re also constantly wanting to hold them in the moment.

It’s just another thing we juggle.

To me, getting mums in the picture is a much wider conversation than one day a year, but this is a time when we actively celebrate the mum figures in our lives. Giving family photography as a gift for Mother’s Day is a gesture of love and thought that will last so much longer than adding chocolates and slippers to your basket.

Here are three reasons why it’s really worth the investment…

It relieves a little bit of the Motherload.

As mums, there are so many things in our heads at any given time, frankly we don’t even bother to say half of them out loud. The motherload is epic, and it pulls us in all the directions all of the time. It’s hard to be responsible for the daily grind and then simultaneously wondering what your kids will look back at from their future. 

Many of the mums I have worked with get frustrated because they often only end up in family photographs if they ask for one to be taken, and even then, it can end in questionable results. By giving a family photography session as a Mother’s Day gift, you’re lifting a little bit of that load. You’re saying, let us take the responsibility of making sure this part of our story is recorded. 

It gives them some of the control back. 

Often, you’ll find us mums holding the camera. On top of all the other reasons for this, it also comes down to the fear of being caught in a picture and worrying about our image. Being a mum can mean losing control of all sorts, not least any real sense of identity. When I work on family and motherhood photography, I take the time to really listen to the mum about how they’d like their story to be told. It might be something as simple as avoiding a close up or picking the much-loved corners of their home where they feel happiest. More often now, I am working on shoots where people are engaging in the activities they love with their families. Many mums tell me they love to see themselves with their children from a little distance, doing the things they do normally, just going about their lives. 

It writes mum into the story

Mum, Grandma, Step-mum, Nannie, Mum in law -  whatever you call them, however they came into your life, these are the women who are hugely important to your family story. There’s a high chance that they’re the ones who record not only the milestones, but also the moments of connection that happen daily in the family. As mums, we feel these fleeting exchanges but for many of us, it’s so rare we see them from another perspective, where we are included in the photograph.

Take this opportunity to book in some family photography, and make sure they’re written into the story.