As a teenager, I’ll admit I wasn’t the easiest. I carried a lot of sadness and anger, and at 16 I left home and found comfort with my grandparents. Looking back, that was the moment I began to understand how deeply children and families rely on having a village around them.
My Grootva embraced me with unconditional love and taught me invaluable life lessons that have stayed with me ever since:
1. Our personalities are like onions. We consist of many layers. We can learn and create new layers, changing over time, with our core personality at the centre. We can grow.
2. Life is like riding a bike. You stay balanced by making tiny adjustments along the way. And sometimes you need to take a sharp turn to stay on the right path.
This summer, while visiting my mum in the Netherlands, I found two old photographs I had taken of them as a teenager, while living with them. They would always walk like this through the high street. My Grootva gleefully chasing the pigeons with the wheelchair like a boy. Or I would find him at his desk, writing. He once wrote me the most beautiful letter, comparing life to a bike ride. These photos and that letter mean the world to me.
Finding those photos reminded me how powerful grandparents in family photos truly are. They hold stories. They hold wisdom. They hold the people who shaped us long before we realised how much we’d need them.
And that’s why I always encourage families to include grandparents, or anyone important to your family story, in your session. These moments, these connections, these tiny pieces of your family history… they matter more than we realise in the moment.
What about you — what was your bond like with your grandparents?
If you’d love to include the grandparents, or anyone who plays a meaningful role in your family story, in your next session, I’d be honoured to photograph those connections for you.
Contact me to plan your own grandparent family photos here in London or beyond.
