Meet Lisa - the girl behind the camera.

Lazy Sunday Photography, Canberra, ACT

Hi there! My name is Lisa. And I am an Australian documentary family photographer from Googong, NSW (just 5 minutes out of Canberra, ACT). My passion is Documentary Family Photography in the form of Day In The Life sessions, and I am the face of Lazy Sunday Photography.

I live with my supportive husband and two daughters (8yo & 9yo).  The girls are 17 months apart in age, but I get asked if they’re twins EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I take them out of the house.  Granted, they’re the same height, wear the same size in clothes and are as sassy as each other so they might as well be!

I LOVE to travel!  We have recently returned from living in the US for 3 years which was a wild ride!  Even though my husband and I had both been to the US previously, we didn’t realise just how incredible the landscape of the country was.  We thrive off exploring the outdoors and managed to squeeze in quite a few incredible road-trips to some of the most well-known national parks in the world.  14 to be exact.  They are all amazing in their own way and I would go back to each and every one of them again if I had the chance, but the two that stood out for us the most were Zion National Park in Utah and Glacier National Park in Montana.  Just WOW!

Glacier National Park, Montana

Glacier National Park, Montana

Zion National Park, Utah

Zion National Park, Utah

During these road-trips we covered so much ground and were lucky enough to explore 29 of the USA’s 50 states.  As a family, we feel so fortunate to have had that experience, and to be able to expose our girls to such wonder so early on in their lives.  Because of this experience, they are open-minded, more confident, excellent road-tripper and even better hikers.  We did a huge…..and I mean HUGE 5 hour hike through a waterfall in Yosemite National Park recently and I honestly don’t know how they made it to the end.  I was stuffed.  The husband was stuffed.  And the girls were stuffed – but they made it!

Mist Trail, Yosemite National Park, California.

When I was in my 20’s I also lived in London for a couple of years.  And what a time it was!  I had quite a few jobs during that period – mostly temping in various offices and working in good ole English pubs.  Every pound I earnt was spent travelling the UK, Europe and Africa – and it was money well spent in my eyes!  I moved back to Aus with nothing left.  Literally nothing.  I needed a new pair of shoes when I arrived home ready to start a new job and my Mum had to buy them for me as didn’t have enough in my bank account.  Thanks Mum!

Backpacking Europe in 2006

These experiences have helped shape who I am today and have led me to this point in my life.  My love of photography has always existed and documenting my incredible experiences along with capturing my growing family in a truthful and meaningful way confirmed for me that documentary family photography was a genre that inspired me the most.  It’s what I loved before I even knew this genre had a name.  In fact, I came across it by accident one day while scouring the internet and my mind exploded when I discovered it was a ‘thing’.  It was a ‘I do this!’  ‘Maybe I can do this for others!’ moment.

And, so here we are…

Why I do what I do.

I now photograph families who want the everyday reality of parenthood documented in awesomely real photos.  The guts, the glory, the tantrums and tears, the big moments and the monotonous ones.  These are the things real life is made up of and the ones that your mind wanders back to when you try to remember what your kids were like when they were younger.

Day in the life session.

My husband and I LOVE when our memories pop up each day on our phones from our cloud storage showing us what we were doing on this day 1 year ago, or 5 years ago or even 12 years ago.  It’s literally one of the highlights of my day and we always send the best ones to each other every morning.  A lot of the time they’re accompanied with “OMG she was so tiny!” or “do you remember how she never wanted to take that Cinderella dress off?” or “I remember that day, she threw a huge wobbly about ….....”. 

The images I capture for my clients are exactly these.  Except both Mum and Dad are in them too.  Cause let’s be real, most of the time it’s Mum taking the quick snap on her phone, so there’s likely 10,579,510 with Dad in them and a small handful of Mum. 

Day in the life sesison.

I wish I had more photos of my Mum from my childhood.  She has lots of albums and I intend on getting copies of a lot of them (in fact, when I visit in 3 months I plan to take a portable scanner with me so I can do just that!).  I loved studying the albums when I was a kid.  She had them stored in an old wood-look laminate cabinet with sliding doors in our tiny dining room and I would get in the mood every now and then to pull them out.  I’d make a huge mess and have the albums strewn all across the dining room floor for hours.  That in itself is a key memory for me.  Now I make photo books of our lives for my girls to look through - and they do.  They love pulling the books out and sit together giggling at all the antics I’ve captured.  It is one of thing that makes me feel so proud and confident, about what I do.

Here's a rare one of Mum and I together. Most of the images she has are of just us kids as I assume she took them, and therefore, she's not in them.

And here's another other of my sister and I, Mum and my grandparents on Christmas day. I look to be about 3yo. These are the only 2 photos I have with her in them with me from when we were small. She might have others in her albums and I will copy them if she does.

Day in the Life family sessions

Day in the Life sessions are a magical way to capture your life.  Traditional lifestyle family photography is great for those ‘pretty’ pictures everyone wants on their walls, but Day in the Life photography is raw and real and emotion-driven. I am hugely sentimental and Day in the Life sessions are perfect for folk like me who want to capture the detail. Images that show emotion, personalities and interactions.

If I’ve piqued your interest thus far, head on over to my website to learn more or reach out via the contact form below. I'd love to chat!

xx