Toronto Documentary Family Photographer | The Ng Family

Ever since I’ve done the Foundation Workshop last year and saw images from my fellow attendees whose assignments involved families, I’ve been wanting to try and document a day in a family’s life as a personal project.  First because I wanted to practice what I learned outside of weddings. And second, I am curious. I was raised by my Mom and my Aunt, so the role of fathers in raising children is something I am not familiar with. My husband and I have no kids so raising a family is all foreign to me.

Melodie, my friend from school years ago reached out to me last summer to see if I do families. She was looking for more candid photos so I offered her to be the subject of my first ever Day In The Life Project. I am so glad she agreed.

On the day of our session, I arrived at their house early in the morning just before they started to make breakfast. Melodie and her husband Dave have two kids together — Lucas and Audrey. Lucas loves to help out in the kitchen and even making the bed. Who knew you can make household chores fun for kids? If I ever have kids, I’ll surely be using that technique. And Audrey, she’s got a myriad of expressions, it is so amusing to see such a big personality inside this little baby. She’s adorable!

I knew coming in that documenting a family is different from documenting a wedding, but I didn’t expect it to be physically challenging. Because I was crouching or lunging all the time to be at eye level with the kids, and also because, I have to keep up with them! I’ve never had a bride move around like kids I can tell you that.

What I also did not expect is to fall in love with Melodie’s family. One thing I learned from Foundation Workshop is that you need to love your subjects in order to photograph them well. After spending the whole day with them, and seeing how they interact, and how the small mundane things that I’ve photographed show how precious their times spent together as a family can be, it was inevitable for me be endeared to them.

Will I do a Day In The Life Session again? Absolutely.

Let me know when you’re ready :)

Here are a few images from their day.