Dear Mum: This Season Will Pass in No Time

By Neha Hira | Vancouver Family & Lifestyle Photographer

I want to talk to you directly. Not to photographers, not to anyone else, just to you, the mum who is reading this, probably on your phone, probably while your child is asleep or playing nearby.

Maybe you've been thinking about booking a session for a while. Maybe you've looked at my website more than once. Maybe you've told yourself one day, when the kids are a little older, when things are a little less busy, when you feel more comfortable in front of the camera, when life feels a little more settled.

I want to gently, lovingly tell you something.

That day may never come. And this season, the one you're living right now, will pass before you've had a chance to hold onto it.

What I See Through My Lens That You Don't See

As a Vancouver family photographer, when I photograph a mum with her child, I see something she almost never sees herself.

The way they look at each other.

Not the posed look. Not the smile-for-the-camera look. The real one, the one that happens in between, when nobody is trying.

The way a child looks up at their mum with something that can only be described as pure joy and pure love. The way a mum looks down at her child with an expression that contains everything, exhaustion and wonder and fierce, bottomless devotion, all at once.

That look is happening in your home every single day. And it's disappearing just as fast.

I get to catch it. Just for a moment. Just long enough for it to become something you can hold.

The Question I Hear Most

As a Vancouver family photographer, before almost every session, a mum asks me some version of the same question.

"Will my kids cooperate?"

And my answer is always the same: they don't need to cooperate. They just need to be themselves.

I don't need your children to stand still. I don't need them to smile on command. I don't need them to be anything other than exactly what they are, wild, tender, distracted, joyful, chaotic, curious. That is not a problem I need to solve. That is the whole point.

The most beautiful images I have ever captured came from moments that felt, in real time, like complete disorder. A child running in the wrong direction. A toddler flopped dramatically on the grass. A mum laughing so hard at something her child said that she couldn't stand up straight.

Those are not failed photographs. Those are the ones that go on the wall.

The Moment Everything Changes

There is a moment in almost every session when a mum truly lets go.

It's not when I tell her to relax. It's not when I give her direction. It's when she sees herself, truly sees herself, completely present with her child.

She didn't know. Because she's always behind the camera. Always the one documenting everyone else. Always the one making sure everyone is okay, everyone is fed, everyone is in the frame, except her.

And when she finally sees herself in it, really in it, not as a background character but as the whole story, something shifts.

What Mums Tell Me After

When a mum receives her gallery, the thing I hear most is: "I love these photos."

But what she means, underneath those words, is something bigger. She means: I didn't know this is what we looked like. I didn't know this is what I looked like with them. I didn't know I'd feel this much looking at a photograph.

Because a photograph of your family, a real one, not a stiff portrait but a genuine captured moment, does something nothing else can do. It shows you the love that lives inside your ordinary days. The love you're so busy living that you forget to notice.

This Season Will Pass in No Time

Your child will not always reach for your hand automatically. They will not always want to be carried, or curl into your chest, or look up at you with that particular expression that belongs only to you.

This season, the one happening right now, in your home, on a random Tuesday afternoon, is the one they will remember. And it is the one you will want back.

You don't need to wait until everything is perfect. YYou do not need to change anything before you deserve to be in these photographs. This messy, beautiful, fleeting season of your life is exactly worth preserving, right now, exactly as it is.

One Last Thing

If you are on the fence, if you've been telling yourself one day, I want you to know that every single mum I have ever photographed has said some version of the same thing afterward:

I'm so glad I did this.

Not one has said: I wish I had waited.

You do not need to wait for life to feel less messy or more perfect. This season is already worthy of remembering.

If this resonated with you, I’d love to photograph your family exactly as you are, right now.

Neha Hira is a Vancouver-based fine art family and lifestyle photographer. She photographs families across Stanley Park, Vancouver's most beautiful natural spaces, and in the warmth of their homes. Her sessions are natural, unhurried, and always real.

Vancouver, BC | nehahira.com | @nehahira_photography