When photos are all you have left …

I have been asked recently by a few different families to take some family portraits as they have a family member who is sick. This is something that is very close to my heart.

This was taken just 2 weeks before he passed away.

I have seen first hand how important photos are. My beautiful brother-in-law passed away when he was only 47 after a 3 year fight with cancer. He had three young children at the time, the youngest being only 3 years old. It killed me to think that his kids might not remember him, or realise how much he loved them. So … I followed them around and took lots of photos of them doing family things together, like building Lego, or reading books. One of my favourites photos is his youngest son lying on his chest just talking to him.

When we heard he had only a few weeks left, he wanted his children Baptised. He spent the night before this day in hospital, we thought we were going to lose him. But he got to the baptism. The way his son looks at his father, and the care he has for them in this moment, always brings a tear to my eyes.

His family are so lucky that even though he hated having his photo taken, he indulged me and let me take his photo. We did a materntiy shoot, birth photos and newborn photos with each of his three children. I followed them to their last trip to the beach together, just trying to hide in the background to get candid, natural photos of what, in normal circumstances, would have been a happy family day out.

Once he passed away, these photos are all we have of him. When someone goes, we can’t get any more of these memories.

I love walking into my sister’s house and seeing photos up all over the wall of their gorgeous family together. These are so precious.

I also watched my mother fade away from Alzheimer’s. She knew I was important to her, but she didn’t know I was her daughter. I remember telling her that I sent shopping for a new Christmas Tree, and she asked if my mother had taken me. I think she thought we were school friends. I didn’t know whether to think my make up was awful and she thought I was 83 years old, or whehter my make up was amazing and she thought we were both 16!

My aunt had printed out and hung on her wall in the nursing home a lot of family photos. Even up to the end, she could usually name the people in the photos, but not their relationship to her.

The brief moment where Mum recognised me and my sister.

When she passed away, I found myself trolling through all the family photos (and I have albums and albums of them) just searching for photos of her. I was always hoping to find a photo of her I hadn’t seen before.

When my brother-in-law passed away, we had lots of photos of him the way we remembered him. With mum, it was really hard to find a photo for her coffin. The later photos of her, she looks so vacant .. that wasn’t my mum. But the photos where she was her brilliant vibrant self, she was so much younger and that wasn’t how we remembered her.

A gorgeous friend of mine took some family photos with Mum about 10 months before she passed away. They are so special. Mum isn’t quite … her … but we saw glimpses of her during the shoot and it is amazing to have those.

There are two times that photos become priceless.

First …. when someone passes away and you can never take another photo of them again. Second … when photos ore lost, or there is a danger of photos being lost. Do you know what nearly every person says they would grab if their house was about to burn down? Photo albums. If someone’s computer/hard drive failes .. what are they worried about? Their lost photos!

I would love to say to you “You never know when you are going to lose someone so get photos done now”, but that feels very … salesy. And that isn’t me.

I love taking photos for two reasons. Number 1 … I love making women of all ages and sizes feel beautiful, because they are. Number 2 … I know how important photos are when they are all you have left.

In some ways, we were lucky. We had notice that both my mother and my brother-in-law were going to pass away. This gave us time, reason and motivation to get photos done. It also meant we had time to say goodbye.

If your family is in this situation, I would love to help you record some special moments. They don’t have to be perfect, or styled … just real.