Oliphant family portraits | Emily Beatty Imagery

It feels appropriate to share these portraits with you today, on Family Day.

When Mr. and Mrs. Lister asked me to document all three of their sons and their families, I was pretty pumped. I was their grandson’s girlfriend, and we had gotten to know each other well in the seven years since Todd and I began dating. GGA and GGB, as they are known to the Listers are just lovely people, always smiling and optimistic. I wanted to create a fantastic series of photos that would capture the essence of their family throughout three generations.

The first Lister shoot was done early in the summer, and a few months later, we assembled the second family on the beach at their home for their first ever full family portrait session. We went with a red, white and blue theme, to celebrate both our Canadian and American ties, and also because there is a strong nautical tradition in the family.

The landscape you’ll see below is in beautiful Oliphant Ontario, just a few kilometers from Sauble Beach. Generations of the same families have grown up on these shores. Years ago, a boy named Gord fell in love with a Michigan beauty queen named Priscilla when she came to spend her summers just two cottages down from his. They were married, and eventually purchased a third lot just a few doors down from both of their parents. Over the years as their family grew, their cottage also expanded and about 10 years ago they sold their home so that they might enjoy Oliphant year round. Needless to say, this beach and this view has a huge place in the hearts of everybody in the family.

We took these photos on a hot and hazy day during Labour Day weekend of 2013, and a few months later at sunrise on Christmas morning, Todd asked me to marry him. That means that these people are officially going to be my family! I couldn’t be happier, because they have welcomed me with open arms from the very start and I already feel like part of the family. I love you guys, and I can’t wait to celebrate our wedding day with you and make it all official.

Happy Family Day!

And the prize for most photobombs in one session goes to…

The family I’m going to marry into! Meet the Listers. I took these photos of my future husband’s family on Labour Day weekend, 2013 but it took me until 2014 to notice that the Listers have 8 separate instances of spontaneous photobombing occuring throughout the course of this shoot.

By the way, the verb “photobomb” is defined by urbandictionary.com as “to drop in a photo unexpectedly…to hop in a picture right before it is taken.”

Normally, over the course of a family portrait session I’ll end up with 10-20 pretty funny outtakes- and maybe a photobomb or two. Clients frequently receive a few of these as bonus files with their order. Its often those unexpected, silly moments that reveal my subject’s most genuine personalities. These photobombs are no exception. You can probably tell more about the fam from the following 8 shots than you can from the other 80 “nice” portraits that I edited from our session.

Without further ado, here are the unintentional magic moments I captured back in September.