Four of us,
zero studio training.
Which turns out to be an advantage when the subject is two and a half and has just discovered that running is an option.
2017 — a favour that got out of hand
Sam was a gig photographer. Ten years of sweaty rooms in Collingwood shooting bands who move constantly in terrible light and never once look where you want them to.
A mate running a centre in Fitzroy North asked him to fill in for a photo day. He turned up expecting it to be easy and discovered that a room of three-year-olds is essentially a mosh pit with better snacks — and that everything he knew about shooting fast, low and in chaos worked perfectly.
He never went back to gigs.
Now — still nobody from a portrait studio
There are four of us. Sam came from music, Bec from sports photography, Marcus from wildlife, and Josie spent six years as a kinder teacher before she picked up a camera at all.
Not one of us has ever worked in a portrait studio, and we think that's why this works. Everything we know is about photographing things that move and won't take direction. Which is, precisely, a childcare centre.
Josie is also the reason our consent paperwork is genuinely excellent, because she has been on the other side of it and knows exactly how annoying photographers can be.
Three rules we don't break
Nobody gets made to
Not by us, not by an educator, not by a parent. A child who says no gets a no. We come back later, and if it's still no we come back another day.
No fake smiles
We'd rather send you a serious face that's genuinely theirs than a stretched grin they were told to produce. A real frown beats a fake smile every single time.
No props, no themes
No chalkboards with the year on them, no seasonal frames, no plastic sunflowers. Every one of those things ages a photo the moment it's taken, and none of them have anything to do with the kid in the frame.
The paperwork nobody enjoys
All four of us hold current Victorian Working with Children Checks. Card numbers and expiry dates go to your centre in writing before we come, along with our public liability and professional indemnity certificates.
We work from your consent list, not ours, and we go through it name by name with your nominated supervisor before we take a single frame. Anyone we can't confirm doesn't get photographed. We'd far rather come back for one child than get this wrong once.
