Let’s slow down – Family Portraits Sydney
Let’s slow down and soak up that divine newborn smell. This age that we are living in is running incredibly fast ridiculously fast, technology is moving at the speed of light, so ridiculously fast that we can barely keep up. We are so busy that we are moving at the speed of light and we can barely keep up. The age we are living in now, we have become accustomed to expecting that we just push a button and something instantly happens. Everything happens with the click of a button and we love it but we don’t realise how much we also actually hate it. When working with clients taking family portraits throughout Sydney I love that I can give my clients the opportunity and time to spend quality time together. These days we turn our TV on and change channels with a click of a button, we record content or later as we are too busy to watch it now, we have access to broad libraries of movies, documentaries, reality and educational TV from several companies and channels with a simple click of a button. We can go shopping pretty much anywhere in the world with a click of a button and we can have our goods delivered straight to our door within anywhere from 24 hours to a few days. It takes two seconds to share some special news with family and friends across the globe via social media, a click a couple of buttons and BOOM! There it is! Then we keep going back and checking to see how many likes and comments we get, who can we interact with? We have access to so much information at our fingertips that we find it hard to switch off. We can travel anywhere across the globe on Google Earth, we can file through personal photos of family, friends and strangers… people we don’t even know, whenever we like. Our brains get used to running at such a fast pace that it becomes so incredibly difficult to just stop. Sometimes we realise this when we are scrolling on our phones… that there is nothing here for us, we ask ourselves “what am I doing? Why am I scrolling through useless rubbish and general fluff from strangers?” We need to realise that we are missing out on our lives, we are missing out on what’s right in front of us, we are missing out of what we can hold in our arms Our brains are struggling to run at a slower pace because running at lightning speed is what we’ve become accustomed to. We can’t even sit on our own in a café, we have to be scrolling absorbing information constantly even if it’s just rubbish.
Family Portraits Sydney
Family Portraits Sydney
I often go to a restaurant with my family, we have a general rule that there are to be no devices at the table, at home, at restaurants, anywhere. That’s the flat rule. No devices at the table, we speak to each other, that’s what we do, but we often see other families where the kids are all in their own world on their devices. They are there physically, but they are not there. No one is speaking to each other, no one is interacting with each other, the ones that are right in front of them and it makes me so sad. I say to my kids that that would make me so sad if they were to sit there immersed in their devices, completely ignoring me and anyone else at the table… that it would make me feel lonely even though they’re right beside me, that’s no way to live, there is a time for devices and a time to be with family. Life is so precious and so dear, so many times we forget and take it for granted that tomorrow will actually be here. Tomorrow is never promised. We often forget that those good old days are here! They are now! The good all days, are today. And the truth is no one actually knows how long they will be here for, we don’t know how many days we have left. Lives can change in a heartbeat and I for one don’t want to have any regrets wishing that I had spent my time differently or wishing that I raised my children differently. Life will often throw curve balls and wake us up with challenges, putting us back on the right path and letting us know what is truly important in our lives. Maybe this could be some health issues in our family or the passing of a loved one, these tough times will all simply make us grateful for the gift of life and all that it is. They will make us grateful for the sheer miracle of just being here. It gives us an opportunity to grow and expand, to forgive, to reconnect and to offer ourselves to others in new ways. We can choose to see each other in a whole new perspective, in a new light… there really is so much beauty in our world, there really is but sometimes we move so fast we’ve been blinded by the speed of life and we just simply can’t see it. We miss what is sitting right in front of us. Something simple like the sun on your face or an elderly couple holding hands (imagine the stories they could tell!) Maybe it is the beautiful scent of a newborn baby. I am so blessed to be able to see, feel and recognise the miracle of life daily through my clients who walk in my door with their fresh newborn. I get a constant reminder and I’m so grateful for this. Taking family portraits in Sydney gives me the wonderful opportunity to connect with so many beautiful families.
Family Portraits Sydney
Family Portraits Sydney
Life can be painful, messy, and it can hurt but it can be so miraculous in the same hand, it just comes down to how we perceive our world and to making a continual conscious effort to slow down, to soak up those little things all around us, the butterfly passing by, every detail of your new born baby, even quite simply just appreciating the stars in the sky. If we keep moving as fast as we are currently, we are just not going to see any of it which is really a tragedy. When my clients are getting in touch to book their family portraits session in Sydney, they often say to me we are struggling to find the time to get together with their older children and all of the above just screams out with the importance of making the time to be together. You simply can’t wait. When you have your portraits taken, it is experience. You get to experience the intensity of being together 100%. Laughing, playing, holding each other… you get to experience all of during your portrait session. So having a portrait session is not just about the photos at the end, it’s about the whole experience and actually being together which is becoming increasingly rare especially for families with older children. So when they say to me that they just are struggling to find the time to get together that is when I say okay, this is the exact reason why we need to get you together. We need to learn how to stop and make spending quality time together as a family our priority.
You can find more information about raising your family on the Karitane website.
Contact Karen here to start arranging your own portrait experience.
Karen Ashcroft Family Portraits Sydney
