about dogwood photography

Hey! I'm Rachel, originally from England, Vancouver B.C. was my home for 9 years until we escaped the city to live small town, mountain life in the beautiful West Kootenays. I love here with my South African hubby and two Canadian teen boys. I originally found my passion for photography when I got my first camera to document my two sons as they grew up and quickly became absolutely fascinated and exhilarated by artistically capturing a cherished moment with beautiful light. I strive to do the same for all of my clients and provide them with beautiful keepsake memories they can enjoy for years to come.

MY APPROACH

I believe your life is uniquely special. My goal is to capture a genuine picture of you and your loved ones in this moment... I'm all about the 'feeling' of an image, so we'll for sure get some traditional, more ‘posed’ shots of you all smiling at the camera.. but the authentic, natural in between moments are the precious ones (with feeling!) and those are the ones that will make you happy when you look back in years to come. Those are the ones I most strive to capture for you. 

Before our session

I'll send you a couple of easy questions to get to know you better, who's who in your family and if you have any specific things/relationships that are particularly important for us to capture. You might want to bring along a special item for our session e.g. one family brought along a special tea set and had a tea party on the beach. It could be a book, a special coffee mug, blanket.. etc. From here we'll set a date and location for your session, this can be in your home or outside (or both!). Weather might mean we have to re-arrange the date, that's not a problem.

You will probably wonder what to wear!

I recommend that you be as comfortable and 'yourselves' as possible, but it's a good idea to stay away from big logos (or any logos!) and lots of stripes. If you want to look 'put together' but still natural, I suggest that you don't try to match but instead pick out around 3 shades (eg blue, white and brown) and all family members wear one or all of them, even if it's just an accessory in one of the colours it will pull you all together. I’d suggest staying away from super saturated, bright colour anything.

During our session 

...I like to place emphasis on 'doing' something as a family or couple together, something you usually do on a normal day, then you can focus on doing just that and being yourselves and I can snap away documenting little special moments I see here and there. I will guide you at some point, maybe to some pretty light or something I see that would really work in the image but mostly you can pretend I'm just tagging along for the fun. We all know Kids and babies can have 'bad' days, I'll document that too! It's all part of the story and I don't like to rush a session so we can just relax and wait for the right time (this applies especially to newborn sessions). Each family is different and has their own special energy so I like to go along with the flow and work with your vibe!