Sometimes you have a clear idea about the outcome of your work and in the end things just happen in a way you didn′t expect at all.

I had a family lifestyle in-home photo session scheduled for one of those cold winter weekends. I agreed with the mother that she would bake some biscuits with the kids and I will run around with my camera and photograph their family Saturday morning. However, when I came to their home, I was asked to photograph the whole family sitting on the sofa with a bunch of flowers. I usually don′t do posed photographs but rather go for authentic images of happy family moments. As a lifestyle photographer I always aim to capture the connection between the family members, documenting the real family life – simply and genuinely as it is. I require no posing and no smiling at the camera.

So this was a great challenge for me…

The children were running around wildly, while the father didn’t feel like being photographed at all. The mother was sitting on that sofa and waiting for an action.

And so I did my work. I chased the kids with my camera as a big crocodile that wants to eat them and they ran away and searched for a hideout in their mother′s arms, I said silly jokes and I commented the whole situation the way that even the father finally smiled.

I must admit that the beginning was truly hard for me but in the end we all had fun and I could deliver a full gallery of beautiful family photographs. It wasn′t really a lifestyle photo session but rather a photo shoot with lots of posing. But that actually doesn′t matter. What matters is that the family received the photographs that are meaningful to them, images that will appear in the family album (and maybe also on the walls in their home) as a reminder of the happy times spent together.