This is Lisa’s family — and today is worth remembering
The youngest does most of her living at full throttle. One minute she’s tearing down the hallway on her scooter, the next she’s diving under the bed mid–hide and seek. Then, just as quickly, there’s a quiet moment with the cat. A good portion of it happening in her jocks.
Meanwhile, her sister is equal parts chaos, equal parts magic.
This is a Your Story session. And this is exactly what those sessions are for.
When Lisa opened the door to her Geelong home, she invited me into the full, beautiful chaos of life. The house felt light and bright. Modern, colourful, alive. There’s a photo wall that stops you in your tracks. And more importantly, there’s a family who clearly adore each other.
What a Your Story session actually looks like
People sometimes ask what happens during a Your Story session. The honest answer is that life happens. I just bring my camera.
For this family, that meant watching the girls tear through the house on the scooter while the cats observed from a safe distance. It also mean being in the kitchen while pizza dough was being thrown across a flour-dusted bench. Then came portraits in front of that photo wall, which warms the heart because you can feel how much photographs matter to these people. In between all of that, I found myself sitting in the middle of a hide and seek game where nobody was particularly trying to hide.
Eventually we made it outside to the trampoline, where the competitiveness of the keepy-uppy situation became very clear, very quickly. Fully committed. I loved every second of it.
By that point, they had forgotten the camera was even there.
Why home changes everything
One of the biggest reasons I love documenting Your Story sessions at home is because you are instantly more comfortable. You know where everything is. You know which corner of the couch is yours. You know the light in the kitchen at that time of day. And every part of the space is yours to show or not. There’s no pressure to perform, because you’re already home.
That comfort shows up in the images every single time.
The girls, in and out of their shells
These two were a study in beautiful contradictions.
One minute they were introducing me to their favourite teddies. The next, they had disappeared into their own world entirely, completely unbothered as they played. One had a crown on. The other was sitting with the enormous, life-changing news that she was about to start school. Then they’d both pull back into themselves again, just kids being kids, brilliant and free.
That oscillation, between wanting to be seen and forgetting they were being watched, is one of my favourite things to photograph. I never push through it. Instead, I just wait, and it always opens back up.
The photo wall moment
I want to stay here for a second, because it genuinely moved me.
This family has photographs everywhere. Real ones, printed and framed and lived alongside every single day. That tells you everything you need to know about who they are and what they value. So when it came to standing the girls in front of that wall for portraits, it felt like the most honest thing I could have done in that house. Photography isn’t decoration for this family. Rather, it’s how they hold onto things.
Why today matters
The girls won’t always scooter down that hallway. They won’t always be this small, this loud, or this brilliantly free. One of them is about to start school, which is its own kind of chapter ending and beginning all at once. The cats won’t always be the same age. And the house, like everything, will eventually change.
That’s the whole point of a Your Story session. Not to create something perfect, but to preserve something real. So that ten years from now, this family can look at these images and smell the smells, hear the giggles, and feel the sun coming through the windows of that lounge room on the Tuesday when everything was exactly this.
Is a Your Story session right for you?
These sessions aren’t just for families with little ones, though if your kids are growing so fast it feels almost cruel, then yes, please book one now. Your Story sessions are for anyone who wants to remember today. Elderly parents in the family home they’ve lived in for decades. Couples who read on the couch and cook together on Sunday mornings. A woman and her cat. A house full of people, noise, and life.
It doesn’t have to be a big occasion. Because today, as it is, is already enough.
If you’re based on the Surf Coast or in Geelong and you’ve been sitting on the idea of a Your Story session, I would love to hear from you. Let’s document your chapter.
Here is a collection of other unique stories –