Growing up there are some constants in your life, your home, your family and your community and when you have lived on the same region your entire life your community becomes deeper and deeper ingrained into your being.

When you grow up in a small community everyone knows everyone and the Phillips family is one of my constants of growing up in a small community.  I have known them my entire life and what’s more they have known me.  My family attended the same school as theirs did, their girls played in the same softball team as my sister and I, we would run into them on Fraser Island as they holidayed there at the same time we did, their grandsons played cricket with my son and they were regular customers in the Kodak store I owned.  It’s not as if we are close just that their paths have criss crossed with mine throughout both my child and adulthood.

So it’s always a pleasure to capture their family.

When you arrive at their beautiful hilltop home you are welcomed inside to wait for the grandkids and now great grandkids to get ready.  The enlargement from their last family photo session (which I swear was only 2 years ago but apparently it was 6 years ago) is hanging pride of place above the TV and Mrs Phillips then invites you to sit in the lounge beside her and catch up.  She wants to know how my children are and is shocked to find out that they are both married, we talk about my parents, the joys of ageing, the weather and then everyone is ready and we can head off to start our session.

We headed down to a beautiful dam on the family farm which Mr Phillips had carefully slashed to make it more presentable…..and was ever so shocked when I asked everyone to stand in the long grass beside the area he had prepared.

A few things have changed since their last family photo session, some new additions.  The grandkids now have their own partners and now there is a fourth generation in the family photo…… a gorgeous, cheeky great grandson.  So one can’t help but wonder what the next family photo will look like.

” The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.” – Dean Onrush

 

Wedding, maternity, newborn and family photographer based in the South Burnett.