Every frame is a goodbye: the bitter truth of photographing the people you love

There’s a strange, quiet ache that comes with growing older. It creeps in softly, first in the absence of a familiar laugh at a family gathering, then in the gap on the end of a group photo where someone used to stand.

Over the years, I’ve watched people I love slowly fade away. Some were taken too soon, while others passed away by the natural order of life. And through it all, I’ve come to realise that photography, for me, has never been about perfection or portfolios. It’s about presence. It's about holding on.

I carry a camera almost everywhere now. Not because I’m chasing a shot, but because I know too well that life doesn’t warn you when it’s about to change.

One day, your dad’s leaning back in a garden chair, telling an old story, and the next, that voice becomes memory. I’ve learned that the small, unplanned frames – the candid laugh, the tilt of a head, the light falling just right on a moment you didn’t expect – can become your most precious possessions. They’re not just photographs; they’re echoes.

There’s something humbling about documenting your own life. About making a record, not of events, but of people. It’s not glamorous or curated. It’s not meant for likes or followers. It’s about the truth of time passing, of relationships evolving, of capturing the essence of a person before the world changes again. When someone you love is no longer around, and you don’t have a photo of them in that fleeting, forgotten moment, that’s a hollow space nothing can fill.

So now, at every family gathering, at every Sunday roast or quiet coffee, I make sure the camera comes out. Not in a way that intrudes or interrupts, but simply so that something remains.

A glance, a smile, a hug. I photograph my child with their grandparents because I know, one day, those images will tell stories they’re too young to understand now. And, one day, when I become part of the older generation, I hope they’ll look back and see the love we shared frozen in silver and light.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow – that we will all, eventually, lose the people we can’t imagine life without. But photographs offer something more than memory.

They offer proof. Proof that we lived, that we laughed, that we loved. They let us hold onto moments that time tries to take. And when grief dulls the details, the images remain sharp.

Photography, at its heart, isn’t about cameras or technique. It’s about people. It’s about making peace with the fact that every frame might be a goodbye – and taking the shot anyway.