I would like to introduce to you Nadine, Jonathan, Rocco and Ines.
What do you need to know about this family?
I met Nadine 6 years ago when we were both doulaing in London. My first memory of her is that she had the sparkliest eyes, the reddest lips and the most wicked cackle I’d ever heard. I adored her immediately.
Jonathan, her husband, is an infuriating ace with a ping pong bat. More alarming than that is that he clearly learnt everything he knows on that front from his delightfully well spoken English mother, Rosemary. Andy and I challenged them to doubles, once. Just once.
Jonathan’s negronis are almost as good as his table tennis.
I was Nadine’s doula for the homebirth of Ines 18 months ago. Doulaing the doula- now there’s an honour. An easy honour. I turned up, took some photographs, watched on in awe and helped clean up afterward. Oh, and ate Rosemary’s freshly baked sponge cake at midnight. It was incredible. And well worth leaving a Stephen Merchant show at the Opera House for.
In preparation for his mum’s birth, 6 year old Rocco drew pictures of Nadine giving birth to put up around the birth pool. Written on them was, “You can do it mummy, I know you can” and, “You did it for me, you can do it again.” And you know what? He was right.
When she gave birth to Ines, Nadine managed to pass on the sparkliest eyes in the world. That kid is like kryptonite.
I love these guys to bits.They have one of the happiest households i have ever known.
As you will see from these photographs- we started this session at sunrise at North Bondi, Ines had a refreshingly unexpected dunk in the cool autumn waves (and recovered spectacularly well), we went home for a quick change and then headed into Surry Hills for brunch.
How did it feel being asked to capture their family at this very point in time? Well, hopefully you can see how that felt through these photographs.
