My Photography Bucket List: Stories I’d Love to Photograph

I have a running list of photoshoots I would absolutely love to photograph one day.

Not because they involve the perfect location, the perfect outfits, or even the perfect light — but because they involve doing something.

I love a beautiful field at golden hour as much as the next photographer, and there will always be a place for those sessions. But some of my favourite photographs are the ones that feel like little pieces of someone's life.

The way your kitchen looks when everyone is making breakfast. Running into the lake at the cottage. Your kids helping decorate the Christmas tree. Getting coffee with the person you've gotten coffee with a hundred times before.

The ordinary things that don't always feel important while they're happening.

So I started a photography bucket list.

Some are adventurous. Some are cozy. Some are a little weird. And some are incredibly ordinary.

Maybe you'll find something on here that feels like you.

For the couples

Your photoshoot doesn't have to mean dressing up and meeting me in a field.

It can just as easily be a date — with me tagging along.

♡ A rainy-day session

♡ A cozy cabin or cottage weekend

♡ Making breakfast together at home

♡ A diner date

♡ Bowling

♡ An arcade date

♡ Wandering a bookstore or record shop

♡ Getting coffee at your favourite café

♡ Grocery shopping for dinner and then making it together

♡ Making homemade pizza

♡ A summer evening at the drive-in

♡ A carnival or fair at night

♡ A retro motel session

♡ A road trip with stops along the way

♡ Camping and making breakfast outside the next morning

♡ A campfire or beach bonfire

♡ Canoeing at sunset

♡ A day on the boat

♡ Jumping off the dock at the cottage

♡ A windy, stormy beach day

♡ A foggy morning by the water

♡ Playing in the snow during a snowstorm

♡ Cutting down your Christmas tree together

♡ Decorating your first Christmas tree in a new home

♡ An ordinary Sunday morning at home

Basically, if it's something you already love doing together, we can probably turn it into a photoshoot.

And honestly? It will probably feel a whole lot less like one.

For the families

Some of the family photographs I'd most love to create aren't really "family portraits" at all.

They're photographs of what your family feels like right now.

♡ Saturday morning pancakes

♡ Baking cookies together

♡ Making an old family recipe

♡ Decorating the Christmas tree

♡ Going to choose and cut down your Christmas tree

♡ A family game night

♡ Backyard sprinkler or kiddie-pool chaos

♡ Gardening together

♡ An afternoon at the beach

♡ Getting ice cream

♡ A cottage weekend

♡ Jumping off the dock and swimming all afternoon

♡ Camping

♡ A family hike

♡ A picnic somewhere you love

♡ Bedtime stories and cuddles

♡ A slow morning at home

♡ Grandparents and grandchildren spending the day together

♡ Multiple generations together at the family cottage

♡ A full "day in the life" session with very little posing at all

Your house doesn't have to be perfectly decorated.

The toys don't need to disappear.

The kids don't have to behave perfectly.

Actually, I'd rather they didn't.

I want the mismatched socks, the toddler who insists on carrying the same stuffed animal everywhere, the kitchen covered in flour and the kid who puts six Christmas ornaments on the exact same branch.

That's your family right now.

Motherhood, newborn & all those little seasons

There are some seasons of life that change almost before you realize they're changing.

♡ Those first few weeks at home with a newborn

♡ Baby's first Christmas

♡ A quiet morning with Mom and baby

♡ A fatherhood session

♡ Feeding, rocking and all the little newborn routines

♡ Baby with the family pet

♡ Pregnancy announcements at home

♡ Maternity photographs at home

♡ Maternity photographs in the ocean

♡ A first birthday documented at home

♡ A motherhood session with no special occasion at all

I especially love the idea of photographing the things you already know you're going to miss.

The way they fit against your chest.

Their nursery.

The favourite toy that goes absolutely everywhere.

The tiny routines that feel incredibly ordinary until suddenly you don't do them anymore.

Weddings & elopements

There are definitely a few wedding-day stories sitting on my bucket list too.

♡ A tiny courthouse wedding followed by wandering around the city

♡ A backyard micro-wedding

♡ A cottage wedding

♡ A campground wedding

♡ A coastal elopement

♡ An elopement somewhere completely unexpected

♡ A rainy wedding where everyone just embraces it

♡ A couple running into the ocean in their wedding clothes

♡ A wedding party jumping off a dock

♡ A chaotic, direct-flash dance floor

♡ An intimate dinner-party reception

♡ A day-after session where you put your wedding clothes back on and we create without a timeline

♡ An anniversary session in your wedding attire years later

Give me wind. Give me rain. Give me grandparents on the dance floor and kids running around barefoot.

The perfectly posed photographs matter too — but I want everything happening around them.

And the slightly more creative ones...

Some ideas are on here simply because I think they'd be ridiculously fun to create.

♡ A nighttime gas-station or convenience-store session

♡ Blue-hour portraits in the city

♡ An entire session photographed with direct flash

♡ A session focused on intentional motion blur

♡ A completely black-and-white documentary gallery

♡ A vintage-car session

♡ A motorcycle session

♡ An artist working in their studio

♡ A musician rehearsing

♡ A tattoo artist at work

♡ A florist creating an arrangement

♡ A baker or chef in their kitchen

♡ A small-business owner actually doing what they do rather than posing for traditional branding photos

And I'm sure this list will keep growing.

Want to help me check one off?

If you read something on this list and immediately thought that's us — I want to hear about it.

You don't need to recreate one of these ideas exactly, either.

Tell me what the two of you do every Sunday.

Tell me where your family spends every summer.

Tell me about the Christmas tradition your kids look forward to all year.

Tell me about the diner you've been going to since your first date or the cottage that's been in your family for generations.

Those things might not sound like photoshoot ideas.

I think they're some of the best ones.

Because someday, the places will look different. The kids will be bigger. Traditions will change. You might move out of that first little house.

And the photographs will remind you what it all felt like while you were there.

See something you'd love to check off with me? Reach out and let's make it happen.