Recently I had a pleasure of photographing Annelie and her lovely caring family in their northern suburb home. I’d seen a few photos of Annelie, really cute ones, so my expectation was high. But when I parked my car outside their family home and walked through the front door, the baby I saw looked exactly like the photos I remember – Annelie looked just like a porcelain doll with her big blue eyes! (I almost got myself a self-portrait in her shiny eyes!)
Everyone was there, so they all took turns to show their off their little princess in front of me. They stood behind me as I point my camera at the little one, cheering and screaming, hoping to make her laugh and smile. I played along a bit, got a few beautiful shots, but at the same time, I was waiting for things to settle down. If you read my blog before you would know by now that I do enjoy photographing scenes of daily life as it takes place. I am of course aware that in a pure sense it is not really ‘natural’ because they would always be conscious of the foreign element in their home (me) and the camera that is recording how they look, what they do, all that, and they do want to look ‘nice’. Many people are really good at posing when the camera is one them. Annelie’s big sister, Nathalie, for example, put on a beautiful smile when the camera is on her. But adults are usually a bit more conscious about the whole thing, often reserved, so it is my task that, as long as they do not tell me they don’t want their photos taken, I see the moments when they look naturally beautiful, without posing or making scene for a camera, but something real, something authentic, that hopefully they would want to keep looking at as printed image on the wall or album and remember how they felt on that day.
It is quite obvious who is the centre of attention here.
Look how she sits back comfortably to face her people…
But when she gets hungry and a bit grumpy, she knows who’s got the control of the world. She knows who looks after her, feed her, change her, carry her across the room, all that. It is all thanks to her mum!
Milad, thank you so much for having me at your home to photograph your beautiful family. It is a shame that I won’t be in town for Annelie’s Christening photo shoot, but I’d love to come back and make beautiful images of your family as your kids grow up happy, healthy and beautiful.
Yusuke Tsutsui Photography - blog 