The Ash Family — Real Family Moments That Will Live On
On February 14th 2025, Andre took his life.
I remember exactly where I was when Kylie called. I started sweating, pacing, and then I just dropped to the floor.
When Kylie asked if I would make his slideshow for the funeral I didn’t hesitate. Spending time with ten years of his images, his face, his family, the life he had lived and loved, I felt the most profound gratitude that I had been trusted with so much of it. Ten years of real family moments that will now live on forever.
I first met the Ash family in 2014. Riley was 15 months old running around butt naked, and Kylie was just weeks away from bringing Sonny into the world.
Over the years I had the absolute honour of coming back, again and again. Each time we simply documented what life looked like for them right then. A trip to Bunnings. Sonny’s first birthday. The BMX track, to reading books together.
One session Sonny was learning to use the potty, which remains one of my all time favourite images from any family session I have ever done. He is sitting there doing his thing, while Andre is in the background cleaning up whatever chaos had just landed. It is so perfectly them.
Andre was a self employed graphic designer and somewhere along the way we became proper friends. Not just client and photographer. We checked in on each other in business, in the hard moments, and sometimes just to tell the other one they were awesome for no reason other than because we meant it.
The last session I did for them was October 2023. Andre wanted to capture what they loved most as a family right at that point in time, heading to the beach and snorkelling together. The water was glass. Riley and Sonny were their brilliant, curious selves. Kylie was pottering around in that quiet, steady way she has. Andre swam with a stingray and spent the whole day telling me stories.
They all looked so happy. So genuinely, completely happy.
Andre made photo books after every single session. Those books still sit in that house. Kylie and the boys can open them any time and be right back in those moments. The real ones. The ordinary, extraordinary, irreplaceable ones.
Not for the pretty pictures. For the proof that it happened. That you were here, that you loved each other, that these days were real.
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