By Evy Photography

My Love, My Life 5/12 – I want to be | Stavanger Fotograf

May 27, 2014

What do you want to be?

I want to be so many things. First and foremost I want to be a great mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend. I want to be a good colleague, I want to be a fantastic photographer… then we got to the shallow I want to be rich, I want to be skinnier…

There are so many ways to be.

I often watch my kids play and I sit there and wonder, what do they want to be when they grow up.

Molly is too young to really have any knowledge about different careers and professions but she is social and has a zest for life, a mind of her own and she is quite the little actress. Grace is the sensitive, sensible, hard working girl and has an amazing imagination. She is at the stage where she is starting to talk about what she wants to be. Every day she just wants to be a gymnast and I spends a lot of her days upside down. She flucturates between wanting to be a photographer like mummy, to a chef… just like in master chef and then she has days where she sits up in her room and write books because she wants to be an author.

But to be honest, their profession and career is not what makes them who they are. What else will they be?

As a mother I help shape them into the person they will become, so what do I really wish for?

I want them to be polite

I want them to be kind and considerate

I want them to be brave

I want them to be hard working

But most important of all are the 2 H’s

I want them to be healthy, and

I want them to be happy.

There are just so many ways to be so although I have so many wished for my kids the reality is I just want them to be them, I don’t want them to be anything but who they are, I want them to be true to themselves. I don’t want them to be what someone else wants them to be, I want them to be what is right for the. The best way to be, is to be yourself.

My gorgeous little girls, you are growing up too fast and I am delighted that you both take such a joy in having me around. I love that it is important for you that I watch you do gymnastics 10+ hours a week, I love that you want to sit next to me and watch tv, even though I often sit busy working on my laptop. You just want to be near me. I love that you both want to be like me because I know in a couple of years it is the last person you want to be. I love that you want to stand next to me in the kitchen watch me bake a cake and be the first to lick the bowl when I am finished. So when you ask me what I want to be… I want to be the one who help you both create happy memories, I want to be the one to give you a safe and happy childhood. I want to be the one you sometimes hate because I say no, but in years to come you will realise that by saying no I was the one who helped guide you down the right path.

So what do I want to be…. I just want to be me, your mummy.

This month I am linking to Annie Smith and I just have to urge you to go and read her post and look at her beautiful photos.

By Evy Photography | My Love My Life | I want to be - May 5 | Stavanger Fotograf

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The Newborn Workshops visits Stavanger | By Evy Photography

May 3, 2014

When I first started out photographing I joined a couple of Facebook groups. In these groups I met a number of fantastic photographers and amongst these was Maddy Rogers and Shellie Wall. We have chatted on Facebook for a couple of years now and I first met them in person 18 months ago following a workshop they held in Dundee. When it became known I was moving back to Norway we spoke about the possibility of holding a workshop in Norway. The art of newborn photography first became popular in USA and have slowly grown in popularity around the world. In the early years of starting to study the art of newborn photography majority of photographers was crying out for training local however I know a number of photographers who in the early days travelled all the way to USA to attend workshops. Maddy and Shellie were amongst the first in UK to offer local workshops and soon became well known amongst other photographers.

While I was about to embark a new life in Norway I was checking out the Norwegian photography market. I noticed that 12-18 month portrait sessions still remained one of the traditional sessions and found a handful of quality newborn photographers. Over the months I have lived in Norway I have been exposed to an increasing number of photographers catching onto the market of newborn photography. It is becoming an increasing trend and a growing market for it. I felt that the timing was right to introduce The Newborn Workshops to Norwegian photographers, I felt quality training would not only benefit me but also other photographers and give us a competitive edge.

Maddy and Shellie arrived in Norway the night before the workshop. My husband said to me, how well do you know these people that are coming to stay with us for the weekend. After years communicating online, the truth is I feel as though as I know them as friends so it felt only natural that I invited them to come and stay with us.

I have been using a really small beanbag in my studio but I received a Newborn posing beanbag late the night before the workshop and ended up using 400 litres of beanbag fillers to get it nice and firm and ready to pose the first baby.

I have previously attended 1-1 newborn photography training where the focus was on posing so I was really intrigued about what I was going to get out of the workshop. I had previously heard feedback that they provided great information on sleeping patterns. The most beneficial part of the workshop for me was the in-debt information on how to settle a baby and how to prepare your parents for the session. The success of your newborn session lies in how well the newborn sleep and knowing the techniques on how to achieve that deep sleep for me is essential and I really felt the workshop gave me quite a few pointers that will help me in the right direction. Having already photographed a number of newborns I have practised different poses and take newborn safety serious, however this was also covered by the workshop and I did receive a few pointers which will be of great help. The bottom line conclusion is that although I have already attended newborn training, I took more back from this workshop then I anticipated.

I was the host of the workshop and I loved seeing how Maddy and Shellie worked in the studio with my props and the space and lighting available. As a bit of a control freak I was getting stressed about everything running smooth. I wanted to be in control and sadly we did have a hiccup with both the beanbag arriving at last minute and the food getting delivered to the wrong address. Otherwise the workshop ran smooth, we had the most adorable models who all arrived on time. The delegates were all amazing and I had help of the fantastic Theresia Pauls who I share the studio with. She helped me ensure all ran smooth on the day.

The day after the workshop I took Maddy and Shellie for a walk around Stavanger. I was playing with my new Lensbaby capturing a couple of images around town. Overall I had an enjoyable and educational weekend. Thank you to everyone involved.

By Evy Photography | Newborn Photographer Stavanger | The Newborn Workshops

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Family day at the Tivoli | Stavanger Fotograf

May 2, 2014

On a sunny bank holiday we decided to take the girls on a little family outing. We got up in the morning and quickly had to adjust the layers of of clothes my girls was wearing. Our cold winter/spring weather had suddenly turned into summer and we had soaring temperatures close to 20 degrees which is quite amazing for Stavanger in April.

We took the girls to a travelling carnival, known as Tivoli in Norway. They had set up home near the city of Stavanger throwing an array of colours which was beautiful against the bright blue sky.

My eldest used to love rides but a series of events last summer meant that she suddenly is worried about the things that used to completely trill her. She was ecstatic about going to the Tivoli, however when we arrived she was taken back a little and was unsure of what she wanted to do. Given a little time she decided to go on a couple of rides.

Little sister however has not met the wall of fear yet and still at the age where she think she can concur every single ride, however the favourite still remains cars. She just loves any cars.

I love making these memories with these amazing girls and you should have heard the giggle when we were in the crash cars. Get them Daddy, Get them… Their smiles as they were eating candy floss and popcorn whilst taking everything in. The delight of winning a price, thanks to a stall where you were guaranteed a win.

After we had spent a small fortune, we went back home where we continued to enjoy the taste of summer during this lovely spring day.

Family day at the Tivoli | Stavanger Fotograf | Copyright By Evy Photography

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Growing, My Love, My Life 4-12 | Stavanger Fotograf

April 24, 2014

April is the month I am reminded of growing… growing in so many ways…. I grow one year older every April. I loose touch of how old I am, the years just seem to be rolling by too fast, I want to be in my 20’s, I want to be young and have my hole life ahead of me… yet I am in the latter end of my 30’s now.

Although April is a reminder of my age and growing older it is also a reminder of life. In April everything seem to come to life, the smell of spring enters into the air. For some reason spring has its own kind of smell, there is just something about spring that means you can smell it. The soil come alive and slowly by slowly you see flowers pushing their way through the ground. Come end of April the trees have gone from being bare to green leaves covering the branches.

This week we have seen our local fields getting covered in bright yellow dandelions and our plum tree’s are flowering, in fact I am quite excited as last year we hardly had any flowers and this year one of our trees are close to being white.

As I watch everything grow around me, I am reminded of my children growing. We are approaching the end of another school year, somehow as a mum I have started measuring my children’s age by their milestones, school years, as gentle reminders that they are no longer my babies that they are little girls, little people. As a mother I want my children to learn to appreciate life, be able to see everything that grows around them and see the beauty in the little things. My eldest daughter announced she wanted to be an author when she grows up, she wants to write stories. So together we are working on her writing skills, as we drive in the car we will discuss descriptive writing. Although we are not writing stories, we look at the scenery around us and we describe what we see. It is important that we move away from seeing lots of houses to be able to describe it how it is, and in fact she is seeing a group of houses built of wood in all different shapes and painted in the colours of the rainbow. Spring is an amazing time to practise descriptive writing and I love using this as a way to help her open her eyes to the world around her and see the beauty, especially the beauty of spring.

As spring heats up the air, lighten the days and nights my children enjoy the outdoors. My eldest is celebrating spring by jumping on the trampoline, I took my youngest to our nearby field which is covered in yellow dandelions. I made her a flower wreath and she picked a large bouquet of yellow flowers. She loved walking around the field picking the flowers and was walking around in her own little world. I on the other hand received a Lens Baby for my birthday and decided to pick flower and play at the same time. I am trying my best to become friends with it and realising I have a long way to go. In time I hope we will become best of friends and that this little Lens Baby will be the one thing that helps me grow my creative photography skills.

So as I grow another year older, as I watch life growing around me, new life and continued life, my wish for my kids is to continue growing (just not too fast) but as they grow I would love for them to never loose their joy for live and the ability to appreciate the little things.

This month I am linking with Donna and her Blog I dream of Daisy. Her images this month are just amazing so you must pop over and check out her blog.

By Evy Photography - My Love, My life, Growing. Stavanger Photographer

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My love, My live 3-12 | Family Life | Stavanger Fotograf

April 2, 2014

As a child if you asked me what family life was and what I wanted when I am a mummy, I would have said that I want at least 4 children and I wanted to spend a lot of time in the kitchen with them. I had images in my head of me dancing around the kitchen, cooking dinner while they sat at the table drawing or all of us in the kitchen baking cakes and having fun.

Several years later I am a mum of two girls and the dream of a house full of children is still alive inside me but reality is that we have stopped at two. My girls are now 9 and soon 5 and growing more independent by the day. Life as a family is not quite how I pictured it, as a child I never saw myself as a working mum. My mum worked from home, she was a childminder and in some ways I never really saw it as working. I never took notice to the time she spent doing laundry or just tidying. What I remember of the childhood is the things we did together, some things we only did once or twice but they are memories that was embedded so strongly that it felt like we did it all the time.

Traditionally family is mum and dad living in one house with their children, however today family is can no longer be defined in the traditional way as family is so much more. We now have a multitude of people who are single parents, co-parenting, his and hers and our children. Family is the bond that bind us together, not necessarily by blood but by how we act as a unit. It is the life we live as a group of people living in the same home.

To me being a family, means that you have someone that depends on you but you also have someone that you can rely on, someone you can lean on and someone offering a support and encouragement. As parents we want to provide our children with a safe and happy home where we offer them the support they need to grow confident and chase their dreams, aim high and accomplish their dreams.

We make sure we listen to our children, even how hectic the days are we always make sure that we sit down around the table to eat dinner. As we eat our dinner our girls will tell us about their day, what they have accomplished, the challenges they have had, things that made them happy or sad. As parents we can support them, offer them solutions to problems or when needed take the neccessary steps to try and fix issues that needs to be fixed. It is important that my girls know that they can come and speak to us. In a family unit I am also a wife, and my role as a wife is to support my husband, listen to what his day has been like and any challenges he has experienced.

Not daily, not weekly but every now and then we bake, we craft and we do the things I imagined myself doing as a mum. It is not what defines us as a family but it is part of teaching life skills, it is part of just doing someting together and doing something together also means that you communicate. You listen, you teach, you learn and you grow closer as a unit. In fact my 9 year old is not far from being able to make waffles all by herself now, we have gone from her assisting me to me supervising.

Most importantly, family is just being comfortable in each others company. It is sitting together on the sofa watching a movie and not really saying anything, not feeling the need to speak as just being there is all that we need, all that we want. Sometimes as a mum all I need to do is step back and observe, listen to my children play, listen to them act out magical dreams through play.

We have had a very busy time lately with daddy away with work, this has resulted on mummy being very busy and although we have lots and lots of photos that we want to share in this blog, somehow they are still waiting on being edited. So I will share a little photo of my daughter who found this old rug and was playing that it was a magic carpet taking her on new adventures which is the pure innocense of a 5 year old. Once I have my photos ready I will create a family life part II picture blog.

This week my 9 year old saw a poster with a little boy hiding in a corner and a question “do you want to go home tonight” and I had to tell her that not everyone felt safe at home. Not every child had a mummy and daddy that treated them nice. So that poster has a phone number so that a child who wants to speak to someone can call that number. She was numb and shocked by the idea that some parentswere bad to their children and she just could not comprehend this. The following day I saw a short video that had me in tears and it painted the family life that is the complete opposit of what I try to give my children. So rather then sharing lots of adorable happy photos of my children I want to share a link to this video because it is so powerful.

So I really want to dedicate this months blog post to all those out there who open their hearts and home as foster parents or adoptive parents to create a safe home to those who needs it where they offer the support needed to build their their trust and confidence.

ReMoved

An Incredible film by Nathanael Matanick

This month I am linking to the talented Sarah Ferry and her blog post Looking Back, have a pop over to her blog to see the true beauty of family life.

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« Older posts Newer posts »

My Love, My Life 5/12 – I want to be | Stavanger Fotograf

The Newborn Workshops visits Stavanger | By Evy Photography

Family day at the Tivoli | Stavanger Fotograf

Growing, My Love, My Life 4-12 | Stavanger Fotograf

My love, My live 3-12 | Family Life | Stavanger Fotograf

Capturing Magic