The importance of family time capsules

maternityfamily

May 25

This is one of my biggest gripes: forgetting an important memory. Have you ever walked down memory lane only to find yourself staring at a fuzzy shadow of what you used to remember, busy scratching your head as you try to collect the milestones to show for it? I know! It’s a horrible feeling isn’t it!

I know how that feels, and more than ever now, we’re seeking to cherish our memories at such an unprecedented time as this. If it’s anything to hold on to, your years pass faster than the blink of an eye. That pre-wedding shoot you took while single as a joke (because every shoot before your wedding is a pre-wedding shoot) quickly becomes a real pre-wedding shoot and a proposal. And then before you know it, boom you’re married and there’s one on the way.

But even as you’re just starting to process having a little one snuggled tightly in your arms, there’s one more on the way. Phew wouldn’t that be a lot to handle! The years indeed blaze past so quickly. (Even I sometimes wonder what happened to the slim tummy I used to have, now replaced by a belly sometimes more heavily pregnant than a 3-month year old mama. I really need to lose some weight..)

Matt and Chings have it down right, with one on the way, we planned for this shoot mere weeks before Eloise was (is, since we’re still waiting as I write) due and also to celebrate the growing years of their first - Tristan. In times like these, time is of the essence! So we planned to have our maternity and family shoot on a Monday morning to beat the morning crowds at Jurong Lake Garden.

But plans looked like it was gonna go south with the news of the Heightened Alert kicking in on Sunday announced on Friday. While I scrambled to postpone and push most of my shoots back past the regulatory date, there was one thing that The Teos and I agreed on, and that was there was no way to push this back. I mean, can you possibly tell Eloise in the womb “Alright, time to delay your birth, we’ll be shooting later so hang in there”? It was simple, we’d push the date forward to Saturday, a day before the measures kicked in.

I had a wedding shoot the samy day in the afternoon, but this really was a no-brainer. We met as the sun was supposed to rise and shot what we could. And when I say “supposed” I mean, we didn’t have a sunrise as planned because it started to rain! What a bummer right? All that was supposed to go right had now seemed to go wrong twice. But where am I going with this story? Memories need to be made, and we make it no matter the situation, because that reflects the situation and gives the moment flavour!

As it started to drizzle, quick thinking, fast hands, an umbrella and a chirpy Tristan was what helped us wrap up the shoot in record time. Dashing from spot to spot, creating scenarios and letting creativity run wild was the deal breaker to beating the rain, the kicking in of the measures and Eloise coming early to say hello to the world.

As we wrapped up the shoot, I started thinking to myself about the importance of maternities and family shoots long and hard. Firstly, that these memories literally serve as a time capsule. Stashed away in safety, brought out 15-20 years later like a family treasure or heirloom to the children to help remember these precious moments before they were born or when they were mere toddlers. Secondly, that it was a personal responsibility to oneself to stop, pause and remember.

The last? Well, the last thing to remember is that family shoots are not so much about the time taken, but the quality of images we get with what’s presented to us. I’m glad that i’m blessed with the gift to capture memories on camera for people. I want to make that possible for as many people as possible for as long as I live. It’s my duty and my joy to do it. So, when was the last time you made a time capsule for your family?