So This is Goodbye
Before the boxes are packed, before the key is handed over, before the last light filters through an empty room—there is time to pause, gather, remember, and pay a quiet tribute to a home.
Are you a sentimental person or more of a person who prides themselves on not getting attached to material possessions? Wherever you land, I’m sure you have stored up core memories in certain homes you’ve done life in over the years. Birthdays and reunions. Deaths and milestones. Firsts and lasts.
What house do your memories fly to when you give them room to travel in your mind?
For me - it’s my first childhood home which now looking back appeared way more oversized than it truly was. Or my grandparents farm that smelled of cedar and cologne. Or my best friend’s house that had the best toy storage space under the wrap around staircase.
This session is an ode to exactly those memories. It’s a portrait of a family saying goodbye to their home, a home that has been crafted with their own hands and well-loved by their four boys.
As I tracked this boy energy through this indoor playground of a house, I got a peek into the memories that have been formed in this home. With a baseball game continually on in the family room, they moved in and out cheering on their team or boo-hooing the ups and downs of each inning. They swung from the custom bunk beds made by dad which live in the boys heads as indoor jungle gyms. They played in the branches of the legacy trees that dot their property and the sacred space around their backyard bunkhouse. As the littles climbed their cherished trees for some of the last times, I could almost feel the trees reaching out their branches to each boy to hang from, to face their fears, and to settle in and look out over the vast field just one more time.
But more than anything this session was about the family dinner, that moment of each day that brings everyone together to share their wins and losses. To connect and laugh. To dream and work out the kinks of doing life together. With only a handful of those family gatherings left to be had in this particular space, how beautiful it is when the sun shines through rain clouds and we see the gorgeous space that is created around a table.
Moving houses is a blur, and the frenzy of packing, purging, cleaning, signing new leases and closing dates demands your full attention. But may we stop in the midst of this chaos to pause and honour the places we leave behind. To pay a tribute by capturing the essence of these memory-holding places.
It’s a small act of honour that gives space to your life lived around the central theme of a home.
Before We Go
A photographic series created in that fragile space between what was and what will be, and what won’t be anymore. It is a final portrait of a space—before a house is sold, before downsizing, before the family gathers elsewhere. It’s about honouring the emotional weight of place and giving a quiet goodbye to a beloved home.
Contact me if you would like to book a session for yourself or someone you love who is moving from a cherished home.
