July 2021 - Brooke Tucker Photography Blog » Brooke Tucker Photography Blog

Anyone who has had a session with me or HECK anyone who has ever even MET me, knows how I feel about PLAY and silliness and laughter! You know that I don’t believe true family photography can’t exist without a good sense of playfulness!

It’s the magic behind every GOOD and wonderful family session. It’s the magic of what makes YOUR family special! Play is at the heart of everything we do with each other! If we aren’t having fun and being silly… why are we here?! We are here to ENJOY each other and goodness gracious we better enjoy these babies while we can because time moves so fast! And my biggest, my most precious reason why I LOVE being a family photographer so much is that I get to stop time for a few precious minutes each time you choose to let me! I get to do this so you can savor your family in this moment in time right here and right now. You get to experience that second in time over and over again. You can re-visit that one single breath, that one playful laugh or giggle or snuggle or experience that was YOURS no matter what time or life might bring you down the road in the future.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!

I mean think about it… HOW SERIOUSLY AWESOME IS THAT?! GAH!

So the next time you think about family photos, I want you to think about them a bit differently! I don’t want you to worry about the “perfect pictures.” I don’t want you to worry so much about will everyone behave or oh my gosh what will we all wear!

My dear sweet mama, trust me I’m with you. I worry about those things too! We all do! We WANT our photos to be great. We want them to be beautiful and epic! We want them to be nice so we can put them in frames on our walls or put them on our christmas cards! I do too!

But I want to take the pressure off of you a little bit. I want you to relax and little and start seeing what I see when I truly look at your family through the beautiful lens of my camera:

I see a family that has a unique connection and love that only you can show me!
I see unconditional love
I see daughters and sons who look at their parents with eyes of adoration
I see mothers and fathers who look at their little ones with hopes and dreams and I’ve loved you before you were even here
I see magic!

So please… take a deep breath when you feel that panic rise. Please, when you step foot out of your car on the day of your family session the only thing I want you to be thinking of is that this is your time to just PLAY with your family. There is no need to worry or do anything else because YOU already have everything you will ever need: love!

Your only requirement is to snuggle! I want you to talk to one another and run wild and be free! I will encourage you to laugh like me (BIG AND WIDE and maybe even snort a little!). I want you to completely LET GO and maybe even act like a kid yourself!

I want you to have a YES NIGHT! Say yes to staying out a little later. Say yes to acting like an elephant with me and the kids! Say yes to screaming at the top of your lungs and then rolling with a fit of laughter! Say yes to a super big bear hug and eyelash butterfly kisses! Say yes to NOT looking at the camera and looking into the eyes of your babies. Say yes to holding hands and hugging and high fives and peek a boo! Say yes to however it is that YOU play when it’s just you guys in your own home one on one!

And if you have ever been on a session at the beach with me before… say YES to ending the night with a wild splash in the ocean!

Trust me…. the more you play the more your love and the more your unique magic will shine!

And isn’t that what we truly want in the end? To see how our lives are when we let that love come through!

Hampton Roads Family Photographer Brooke Tucker

Happy Monday Friends! I can not believe how fast summer is flying by! Maybe it’s because my kiddo is getting older and I’ve entered the uber driver stage of life, but I mean WOAH! I feel like I blinked my eyes and summer is half way over for us here in Hampton Roads! Where does the time go?

We all know that saying time is a thief and boy do I feel that something fierce right now. I feel like summer is that time when I actually take a moment to stop and really SEE my kid (maybe it’s all that free time they get to spend at home). Summer is the time when you pause and realize “wow, when did they get so tall? When did they get so into this or that?! When did they get too old to do this?!”

Summer is the time I always remember OH GOSH… I only have x number of summers left before college! I know, I know scary thought! But it’s the season for me when I really realize time is precious and I need to soak it up, I need to soak in as many memories as I can while I can and just enjoy my kiddo in this moment in this stage right now!

That’s why I think I love shooting summer sessions so much. It’s that time and space where we as parents take a little more notice of how quick time is while also having the freedom to be a little more wild and have those “yes” opportunities! You know the ones I’m talking about it! That freedom to finally say YES we can stay up a little later. YES we can totally have ice cream for dinner! YES let’s absolutely go down to the beach and stay long into the sunset hours!

Summer really means freedom for everybody if you think about it and I’m not totally ready to let it go!

This session was absolutely one of those types of sweet summer time sessions! Linc and I met Claire and her mama Charlotte a few years back when we all chose to do surf camp! Claire and Linc hit it off immediately; probably because they are both free spirited, wide open, only children! They are two peas in a very extraverted pod!

Charlotte wanted to capture some portraits of Claire before they cut her hair real short and also while her smile was as adorable as it is right now (perfectly perfect for 8 years old!). So we met at one of my favorite beach locations and we had ourselves a silly, fun and wild time!

That’s the best part about summer sessions: we can be wild! We can play (and boy did we play!). We can go in the water with our clothes on. You’ll come to find if you’re new here that going in the water on sessions is a theme with me! I live for it! I plan for it and not only do I want YOU to pack a change of clothes for your kiddos, but I also come packing a change of clothes as well!

And as always… there’s a ton of laughter which is Claire’s speciality!

Claire is one amazingly cheeky, funny young lady! She had me rolling the entire session! It’s hard not to laugh and be in a joyful mood when you are around her. She IS pure joy! If you had to describe her in 3 words, I think I would say SUNSHINE, JOY and FULL HEART! She is a bright shining light and when you leave her and her mama, you just feel uplifted and light and full of all the good things! You just want to be around them because they are wonderful people!

Claire I can’t wait to watch you continue to grow and girlfriend…. let’s go out and catch some waves next time alright?!