Wirken Photography Blog

On Sunday we all got together with my parents for an early birthday/fathers day celebration for me.  You know time with the parents, eating steak out on the porch enjoying the sounds of little feet and laughter.  All the great moments in life.  Those moments that come and go only recorded mentally.

My parents gave me a gift for fathers day that fueled an already raging fire in me.  It was a little book filled with wonderful images of fathers and their children.  I found myself wanting to instantly thumb through it.  So I did.  Page after page of wonderful photographs.  Some portrait, some documentary images.  Then I noticed how much a strong feeling I got when I came upon a true documentary image as opposed to a portrait.  Do not get me wrong I love portraits and know the importance of a portrait, but there was something about the incredible moments captured between father and child that blew me away.

Maybe it was the fact that I had just seen my parents wedding album that night and experienced the importance of documenting family, maybe it was the subject matter of kids and fathers, but I felt this wave of passion for the moment and for documenting it.  It hit me when looking at an image of a triathlon race in Australia.  The athletes were exiting the ocean after the swim and among the crowd was a little boy holding an artificial limb.  He was  handing it to his father as he came out of the water so he could run the final part of the race.  Amazing moment that said so much in one photograph.

At this point I am sure you are asking yourself- what does this have to with Charlotte?  Well I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about a new direction I want to go with my documentary photography.  One that I have been working on slowly for a while.  One I feel very passionate about.  One that I got the chance to do when sweet little miss Charlotte came into this world.

I was asked by Becca to photograph the birth of their first child Charlotte.  I jumped at the chance.  Is there is any better life moment to document than a birth?  I was honored to be asked to do it and a titch nervous to do a great job for them.  The result I am very proud of.

This shoot along with a few other non-wedding documentary shoots opened up a new passion for me.  I want to be able to document those everyday family events for people in the same hands off way as we do weddings and as I do for my family.

Thus the birth of the - Normal Day Session.  The idea is to be present and to document the normal happenings of family life.  Births, events, or just the average normal day with out interruption.     As a parent who has had this done it is priceless.  My very good friend Brooks Whittington did this for Pam and I of us and our boys last year.  Unbelievably good.   To view that go to- www.thewirkens.com.  Contact the studio if your are interested to learn more.  Later I will share some images of a normal day session I did just recently.

Back to the story of Charlotte.  Charlotte is 3 months old now so this is a bit late, but it took me that long to finally figure out how to post videos on our blog!

Enjoy the show and thanks for listening.  I also need to thank and give credit to my friend and amazing photographer/storyteller Amy Deputy for inspiring this show.

I first heard this song in one of her shows and was mesmerized- it is Twenty Two Fourteen by The Album Leaf.  I was also inspired by her great use of text with images.  Thanks friend.

A final thanks to Becca and Mark for letting me in and to Becca for the use of the first two images in the show.  They are hers that she shot while having contractions!