When I spoke with Reena on the morning of the shoot, she apologized ahead of time for the so-called “chaos” in her house.  I told her as a parent of two kids myself, that I fully understood and not to worry.  So as I arrived with expectations of shooting in a house with little kids, I was both surprised and dismayed:  pleasantly surprised in that the household was perfectly tidy and calm; dismayed to think of what Reena would consider my own home which, despite having  two much older children, was probably a thousand times messier and more chaotic.

Even though the focus of the shoot was to be on her little newborn sister, little Bandhna was very keen to steal the show.  Though she started off quite shy of the camera, a few stories and a couple of games of blocks soon had Bandhna prancing about the living room and playing with my umbrellas.  Gurkirat took a little more work to get to smile, but Gurdeep seemed to have the touch that day as she certainly enjoyed hanging around with her daddy.  Some nice light and nice colours in their living room – here’s a handful from the session:

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Having just gotten married last fall, I figured there might be something of a break before I evolved from being Devin and Julie’s wedding photographer to being their family portrait photographer.  Turns out they didn’t waste much time at all!  And just a couple of weeks ago they welcomed little Jasper into their world.

Since they knew ahead of time they wanted baby pictures, we planned to do the session while Jasper was still very newborn.  With my wife being Caucasian and myself being Chinese, I always have a personal interest in seeing what other mixed babies look like.  Right away I noticed that Jasper seemed to favor a more Asian look than my kids did at birth. And I’d forgotten how peely newborn skin could be!

With a huge bank of soft window light and this great big green circular couch at my disposal, their house was pretty much a perfect setting for taking pictures. We managed to get some really nice shots with mom, dad, and grandma, although poor little Jasper had his nap interrupted a couple of times by all the transferring between arms holding him.  I certainly appreciated Julie and Devin accommodating all my requests to jostle the baby back and forth – I just hope they didn’t pay the price later on with a cranky and sleepless baby!  Hopefully the pics were worth it:

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Every spring, I look forward to the opportunity to work with the wonderful Sareen family and their two little ones: Mya and Aidan.  It was a bit of a revelation when it occurred to me that this was my fourth annual portrait session with them – how time flies!  With last year’s shoot taking place in the studio, we changed it up this year and I eagerly headed over to their home to chase after the kids with my camera in their own environment.

While there’s the usual surprise in seeing how much they’ve grown every year, the signs of change were rather apparent this time: you know time is passing when they’re out of diapers and have moved on to losing teeth.  But some things remain the same and as always, the kids were super excited, falling over each other to show me their latest toys, and all-in-all just a blast to be around. I spent some time following them around the house as they showed off their rooms and newly found piano skills (I don’t recall my kids being quite so focused as Mya was on the keyboard).  And with it being a bright and sunny afternoon, we headed out to the park, running after them as they pedalled furiously away on their little bikes.

Always a joy and a pleasure to work with – thank you to the Sareens for sharing your lives with me!  And some of my faves from the session:

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