Jennifer Stocks Photography – The Blog

Day 4 of documenting the life of my family over the month of August. Stay tuned for a picture a day of my family just being themselves.

Captured – As Mitch slept soundly in his cot tonight

The Story – There’s not much to say, nor is there anything quite as beautiful… as breathtaking…. as a baby sleeping. Especially when that baby is your own. I hope you are dreaming the best baby dreams, my boy.

Day 3 of documenting the life of my family over the month of August. Stay tuned for a picture a day of my family just being themselves.

Captured – As Mitch and Marli had a kick on the playmat together.

The Story – I have this new niece. She is amazing. She is truly cute and beautiful. Plus, she is a girl and I needed a little pink in my life. (Well, let’s be honest – I really just wanted to be able to buy some pink clothes, you know?) Marli is 3 months and 3 weeks younger than Mitch. He looks like a giant compared to her, but they are both pretty big babies. My sister Bianca and I hang out a lot, which means our babies hang out a lot too. Marli is obsessed with Mitch. Mitch is obsessed with Marli. She stares at him. Smiles at him. He stares at her. Smiles at her. They hang out on the playmat together, and already enjoy each others company. They touch hands and stare at toys together. Then they smile at each other and wiggle their legs around a bit. I swear Marli is watching Mitch do everything, and taking it all in – getting hot tips for how to do baby stuff. I’m so glad they have each other to hang out with. I can’t wait to see what life has in store for these two little people who seem to already know each other so well.

Day 2 of documenting the life of my family over the month of August. Stay tuned for a picture a day of my family just being themselves.

Captured – I hate to admit it, but this one wasn’t actually taken today. It was taken about a week ago, but today was a day of sick kiddos and zero natural light. It just didn’t work today. Luckily I love this image of Beau, and I am happy to be able to include it.

The Story – So, right now I have my sick boy on my lap – Dusty that is. We are going to write about Beau together. So, I will be the scribe while my beautiful big boy tells us all about his little brother Beau. This is what he has to say:

“Beau is my little boy brother. He sometimes mucks around but he is a really good boy. Sometimes he scares the cat. Sometimes he tries to do the big boy stuff that I can do. He is three years old and I know he gets up to tricks. I try to stop his tricks and mucking around. And also I really love him. And he’s the greatest brother, but sometimes he mucks around that crazy kid. Sometimes he wants to be on the funniest home videos. He’s a very cheeky kid. I would really love to make him go on a train ride, but really he would like to go on a tractor ride. He’s really great. He comes up with really great ideas. He likes to watch Little Einsteins and Mister Maker. He likes Bo on the Go and Brum. Also sometimes he likes to watch stuff with great characters and sometimes stuff with naughty characters. Beau likes to eat apples, rice bubbles and sometimes he likes to eat bananas. He likes to enjoy when we have pizza. He likes going to the chippy shop and the Beekeepers place and the racing car park. He likes to play with tractors, and he plays with Mitchell and sometimes he tries to put funny hats on him. He chooses books for us to read, and sometimes they are very funny books and we laugh about dogs together. He likes to play with the Geotrax, and his remote control train – Seaside Flyer. And I only have a geotrax train to push – it’s Stumpy. I like playing with Beau because he is a great friend to me. He helps me when I need to do something, like when I slip off the lounge he tries to pull me up again. We watch shows together and sometimes when Beau isn’t here it makes me very sad. He really likes to do some dances, like the funky muffin man dance on Shrek.”

Cute! That is 99% verbatim. I did jam it all together when typing, as the new sentences and paragraphing would have made this blog post a thesis. I did ask some questions from time to time if he was running out of things to say, but overall it’s a  true representation. It’s beautiful to me. It has to be. I’m his mummy. And this little guy pictured underneath is beautiful too. Beau, darling. You are a little ray of sunshine in our lives. You are such a good-natured little guy, with a zest for life, a wicked sense of humour and a cheeky smile. You could get away with almost anything, just by flashing that grin and those dimples of yours. Your charisma just oozes out. You are a wonderful helper with your little brother. You are so kind and are always thinking of other people. You always shout to your big brother when you see or hear ANY kind of reference to trains, “DUST – there’s a train on TV”, or “DUST – look at the train over there”, because you know how much he loves them. You are so good at packing away your toys. You are fiercely independent, and believe you can do anything. I know you can.

Your favourite thing to say to me is, “You’re so boootiful mummy”, and you know it works a charm – every time. I love you little guy. I always will. Every single day.

Introduction – Day 1 of documenting the life of my family over the month of August. Today is the very first day. This is a personal project I conducted over the month of January 2010 with some photography friends. I loved it so much, I’ve decided to do it again. It’s time to celebrate what our family is now.

You see, in January I was in the last month of pregnancy with our third little baby boy. Doing the project was the most amazing way to capture the last month of our lives as a family of four. Our little baby Mitchell Quinn Stocks arrived on the 3rd February. He just missed the boat on my January photo a day, but I am hoping to make up for it this month. The little baby stage is passing and I miss it already. I want to remember it so badly. I cannot forget what my little people are like right now. I must not.

You can take a picture and keep it forever. It brings back vivid memories. But take a picture and add some words about how you felt at that time and that moment, and it just escalates to be something so incredibly special to your family, and your life. So, for the next month I will do my best to photograph and write about the everyday happenings, the love, the mundane, the wonderfulness, the crap parts and the tangible things that are important to us right now. Some days I won’t say much ( if there’s something really good on tv that night), but mostly I will be on the ball.

So, here we go.

Day 1 of documenting the life of my family over the month of August. Stay tuned for a picture a day of my family just being themselves.

Captured as we went for a Sunday drive.

The story – Bathurst is hardly known for it’s tropical balmy winters, yet it’s not freezing here either. Australian’s just like to whinge a lot about the cold. Recently we were in Brisbane and at 24 degrees, the Brisbanites (you know who you are) were whinging about how cold it was. Seriously people…..that’s bikini weather for us Bathurstians.

When you live in a cold place, sometimes you have really got to force yourself to get amongst it. So, last night we decided we would get our crew of little people out the door for a Sunday drive. We headed up to Orange for no real reason, and along the way experienced a little honey tasting, and antiques viewing at the Bee Keepers Inn (which is a really lovely place that we would never have experienced if we weren’t on a granny style Sunday drive).

Our next stop was marked by a brunette manequinn in a red dress – Darcy’s Old Wares. It you haven’t been there, it’s one of those crazy ye olde shoppe’s where they would probably charge $120 for a barbie-doll with only one remaining limb, but…. despite that, i’ve always liked that old place. It’s got character, and the ever-changing manequinn out the front of the store always entices the curious at heart to venture in.

There’s been an old phone booth out front of the store forever. Today it became the place where Dusty and Mitch sat for a photo.  Beau didn’t want to get off his dad’s shoulders to hop in, so today is all about Dusty and Mitch. There is something so remarkable about the way the older boys are with their little brother. I’m proud to see the way they treat him.

So, that was half our day. The remainder of the day was spent driving around. Pizza for lunch. Little Einsteins. Lamb cutlets with veges. Cleaning. Reading at bedtime. Chatting with Dusty about what stuff I got for my birthday when I was a kid (not sleepy after falling asleep in car this arvo). We also discussed ways he could make a film. Now it’s time for bed.

I look forward to tomorrow. How could I not? I’ll wake to the sound of a crying baby, but I know when he sees me i’ll get an enormous, dimpled smile.

I have been an emerging member of the Australian Institute of Professional Photography for around 12 months now.  Recently, they held their annual National Awards, and for the very first time I decided to take a chance and enter three prints (more out of interest than anything).

Well, the fantastic news is that it wasn’t such a gamble! I won awards for two of the three prints. A Silver Distinction and A Silver Award! Although the third print didn’t win an award, it came very close and received a merit.

I couldn’t be at the Awards Judging, but I was very lucky to have some of my gorgeous photography friends checking it all out for me. An especially big thank you Kristen for pretty much giving me to-the-minute updates and live coverage of my prints being judged! I will be forever grateful.

Now I need to find somewhere suitable to hang my certificates. I have to admit, these are way cooler than the Principals Awards we used to get at school!

So, for those who are interested – these are the prints that won. The first won Silver Distinction (Portrait category), the second won Silver (Family category). A big thank you to the divine  little Lara, who is the star of the family shot, and of course, my big boy Dusty for deciding to stand on the fence so thoughtfully. xx