Hong Kong Family Photoshoot with the Grandparents
Extended Family From All Over the World!
For my first five years or so as a family portrait photographer, I really didn’t photograph adults that much. I considered myself a candid kids photographer more than a ‘family photographer’. Of course I always got the holiday card photo with the parental units, but my emphasis was on far more on documenting personalities. Kids are just so natural, they almost always give me shots I am looking for. At that time, very few photographers were taking that approach. It was either studio, or kind of strange (to me) photos of kids in pumpkins patches wearing angel wings. In short, it seemed to be more about the parent’s idealized conception of childhood, rather than capturing who their kids actually were.
Fast forward ten years or so, and I began to become more of a ‘family photographer’, that is to say I would spend 25-50% of the session working with the entire family. I still concentrated on getting ‘non-standard’ images of the kidlets, but I tried to give more. Still, there is nothing better as a photographer than coming home from a session, loading up the photos into the computer and bursting into laughter into a shot that you didn’t realize you had taken.
It’s super important to involve the grandparents in your annual family photos from time to time!
Here are a few shots of a photo session I did in Stanley, Hong Kong, where the kids came with Grandma, who was visiting from out of town. She was super-youthful and great with the kids.
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or me the most meaningful full family photos come when we have multiple generations in the photos. These can be hard to organize, as sometimes part of the family is coming from a different part of the world. Twice in my career I have photographed three year old children with their 98-year-old grandmothers. This is pretty special when you think that you can have two living members of a family born 95 years apart! One of these grandmoms is still alive at 105, but I haven’t had the opportunity to photograph her again.
Below are some shots from 2008. While they aren’t really in my aesthetic with the indoor flash and all, they feature FOUR GENERATIONS of one Hong Kong family, including one Hong Kong Olympian.
The Great-Grandmother born in 1910, her Great Grandson was born in 2005. That’s pretty special IMO.
Last year I photographed an extended family of HK-ers who had been living in Canada for decades. They all came back for a visit: one one-year-old (one day after her first birthday), the parents and four grandparents. We visited the neighbourhoods in Hong Kong where the grandparents had grown up: Whampoa Garden and Pok Fu Lam. What a fun day, and those photos are gold, especially in 50 years.
Here are some recent photos from a session with one kid and six adults, which included three grandparents. Honestly 15 years ago I might not have taken this session, but now I love them. It was all about me opening up my mind a bit and becoming less rigid to be honest. I think my work is better for it. I know the grandparents love being at the sessions. Sometimes, if they are very elderly, they can join just for a portion of the session. (Not an issue with any of the people on this page however!)
And of course I will post this shot of my parents with their six kids and six grandkids and various partners. They lived for their grandchildren.
Dr. Earle & Joan Taylor with their brood. Picton, Ontario, Canada.
