Who else ends up with bleary-eyed photos of them with their children?!

I have always been a bit (a lot) obsessed with taking photos; of food and wine or beer, of my dogs, and now particularly of my son. It’s something I’ve inherited from my dad, probably because me and my sister grew up being able to watch videos of us just messing around with each other or our mum or grandparents. These quite mundane moments become so special as we get older, especially when we lose one of the people in them.

My partner isn’t big on taking photos at all, as you’ll be able to tell from his expression in one of the many pictures of him in a bar or restaurant on my Instagram (an expression I now call “please not another photo”)! As a result of this, he rarely picks up his phone to capture a moment between me and our son and, if he does, it has usually been prompted by me asking.

I’m including a few examples here for comparison! While I adore any photo of Teddy, I do sometimes wish that there were some of the two of us in existence where I am smiling/looking at the camera/not blinking and not in fuzzy self portrait mode.

If you feel the same, I would love to help you make some (in focus, thoughtfully taken) memories that you can treasure and look back on in years to come when your child is all grown up and doesn’t ask for cuddles, poke you in the eye or cling to you like a Koala. I might even let your partner in the photo, too!!

In the mean time, please share some of your funniest selfies with your children so I can have a laugh and know it’s not just me!

I’m aware no one has asked for more detail on who I am (!), but I always like to have an idea of who I’m working with and thought you might, too.

So hello! I’m Emily, and I am a mum, a family photographer and a lover of beer, wine, good food and walking up hills in nice weather. Facebook recently asked me to fill in the ‘About Me’ section on my page over there (shameless plug here) which prompted me to think about expanding on what I had written on my website.

Before I had my son, and for a little while after, I worked in HR and was very comfortable with my situation. Fast forward 2.5 years and I am anything but comfortable, trying to carve out a working life that makes the most sense for all three of us. I’d always thought that whether or not I went back to work as a mum would be entirely up to me (with perhaps a little input from Alex!) but soon realised that this was naive and, well, wrong.

Long story short-ish, it made no financial sense for me to go back to my old job (read: old friends, hot cups of tea, quiet moments, luxurious car journeys, lunch breaks browsing shops…) and so after much soul searching/panicking, here I am! ‘Here’ is me working hard to make a living sharing my passion for photography with local families; teaching myself, a notorious ‘follower’ rather than ‘leader’, how to be my own boss, market myself, manage myself and possibly most importantly, pay myself! All while my son is with me four days a week - a wonderful privilege but he’s not a very good co-worker just yet.

I’m sure this isn’t the last you’ll hear of my transition into ‘working mum’ status (sorry), but I’d love to hear more about your own journeys - are you loving it? What have you struggled with? Do you ever feel normal again!? (Side note: what is normal?!)