I have always loved photographing my kids out in our backyard.

Although, I do have to admit, that there have been times where I have wanted to hide so much of what was out there, and make it look very different to what it was.

We live in a fairly usual suburban house to the North of Brisbane. So there are all the usual backyard things – shed, clothesline, fences, neighbouring houses, and not to mention toys left around by the kids – in and around our yard.

It really isn’t the prettiest of locations.

It’s definitely nothing like the wonderful rolling hills, or beautiful trees that you might picture as being the perfect background for photos.

There was a time, when I first started getting serious about learning photography, when I did try to hide all of these things in the photos I was making. I wanted my photos of my kids to look like those wonderful portraits that other photographers make. Portraits of children in front of clean, blurry backgrounds of meadows and trees.

Yes, for a little while I tried that.

I used angles, light, shadows, depth of field, and any other photography ‘trick’ that I discovered, to cover the suburban-ism of the environment.

Gradually I came to realise a couple of things about portraits like that. Firstly, they never looked quite right when done in my backyard.

If I really wanted to make portraits in that posed, outdoors way, then it was best to head out to a park or a beach – somewhere with large, clear wide open spaces. I did (and still do) do that on occasion, but when you have 3 or 4 young ones, heading out frequently can be tricky.

To improve my photography I needed a huge amount of practice. I needed to use my camera more frequently and regularly than I could manage to take the kids out to the ‘perfect’ location. That meant shooting at home – a lot! Taking photos in the house and out in the yard. That was, after all, where the kids and I spent the majority of our time.

Another realisation was that I thought that I started photography for me to remember how the kids were as they grew up (and that is in some part true), the moments I photograph are their memories too.

I hope that they all look back at the photos I have taken in decades to come and recall how they spent their childhood. I think that they will want to look back on what they did, not just on how they looked, from one year to the next. That means photos on the trampoline, on the swing set (that has seen far better days), and of running around the messy backyard with towels always on the clothesline.

I gradually came to see that the mess and the clutter in the yard is very much a part of the story. It a part of their everyday environment, it will be a part of my kids memories of growing up. For all these reasons it’s important for it all to be shown in the photos I make of them there.

Another plus of photographing the kids out in the backyard, doing what they do, incorporating the environment is that they are much happier for me to have my camera out and of being the subjects of my images. They quickly get tired, annoyed, and often uncooperative with the traditional style portraits. Me taking photos while they’re playing isn’t as intrusive, and definitely not as boring for them, as having to stand and pose in the right position, light, location etc. (Which also makes them more willing to help me out quickly when I do want to make portraits like that).

As a part of our home, the backyard is also a place where the kids can be kids. It’s where they can just be. They play and express themselves out in that backyard. They run and jump, and laugh, and imagine. It’s also the place where they develop their relationships with each other. Being able to capture even a small amount of these moments makes me so happy. I hope, in the future, that it will make my kids (and maybe even their kids) happy too.