Family Photography in Ottawa | Motherhood, Toddlers and Real Life
Our children are now in high school! But like photos, sometimes a blog post brings back memories that leave me all glowy - so it stays. Links have been updated to reflect the shifts in my photography business, but not much has shifted in WHY family photography matters.
How will you remember these early years?
The irony, as I sat down to put together this blog post, is that I thought I had nailed my evening. As a business owner, often my "work time" is a few hours a night after my children have fallen asleep. I sat down, sipped my fizzy water, and sighed as I fell into my work -
"Mimi? Mimi?"
I pretended that he was going to fall right back to sleep. I took another sip of my water and started working on my exports...
"Mimi?"
Sigh. Yup. He's awake.
I walked the 6 steps down the hall from my home office and laid down beside him. He's at the age when he'll just find the boob on his own and latch. Four minutes later, the snorty sleepy breath began again and I slipped out the door.
I sat down to work. Ten minutes later - guess what?
I know I'm one of thousands of work-at-home parents who are in the same boat tonight. I try to remember that every time I need to leave my work (I love work!) and snuggle back in with that little 18-month-old so he can settle back to sleep. It's not like this every night. But this is how some work nights go.
Over the years I have met many amazing fellow business women in our community in Ottawa. I'm challenged, inspired by and of course have had many laughs surrounded by some incredible business people. I actually don't know when I met my friend Sara - her youngest son and my daughter are the same age. It might have been through the Ottawa Babywearing Group, maybe it was through photography, I really don't remember.
This is the good stuff!
These photos are from an afternoon we spent together taking photos of each other with our toddlers. They played together, with breaks for milk, breaks for tears and cuddles and it was perfect. This is the good stuff - the real life stuff. These are the kinds of photos I love! We hung out and chatted, our kids played and we snapped photos as the afternoon went on. The photos she gave me from this afternoon are treasured here - one is framed on our wall.
These are the photos we can look back on in twenty years - they will bring us back to the feeling of his hair in our noses as he checks in for a cuddle while he cries because he wanted the RED piece of Lego. They will bring us back to the hours and hours we spent nursing wondering when he would take a break so we could have some space...while at the same time hoping these breastfeeding moments would never end. They will bring us back to the hours of walking with our babies on our backs - sleeping, exploring, singing, and listening to all the babble that eventually evolved into full on conversations.
Motherhood is beautiful, hard, intense, snuggly, tiring, exciting, invigorating and photographs are a perfect way to capture a few of these amazing moments so we can celebrate them for years to come. I'm thankful to have other moms who honour these moments too so we can capture them together in photos.
Hello 2014ish - it’s now 2026, and I wanted to update to say that Elle Odyn Photograph & Film is still operating and offering family and child portraits!
