Capturing Childhood Moments Before the Magic Disappears - Family Photography Brisbane

I have a folder of photos from when my girls were little. Sophie and Charlotte, maybe three and four years old, sitting in the garden with the most awestruck looks on their faces.

In each photo, there's a tiny fairy sitting in the palm of their hands.

Those fairies weren't real. I'd put them there with Photoshop. But to my girls they were completely, totally, one hundred percent real. They'd stare at those photos for ages, showing their friends and grandparents. Absolutely convinced.

Sophie is fifteen now. Charlotte is thirteen. I don't think either of them has believed in the tooth fairy for a very long time.

And I can't go back.

That's what this post is about. Not the photos, not the fairy, not even the magic itself. It's about the window. Because the window for capturing childhood moments is so much smaller than it feels when you're inside it.

The Magic Years Don't Send a Warning

Kids don't announce when they stop believing. There's no final Christmas Eve where they turn to you and say, "Mum, I've enjoyed the Santa era, but I think I'm done." It just quietly happens. One year they're leaving out carrots for the reindeer, and the next year they're googling whether elves are real.

The tooth fairy goes the same way. So does the Easter bunny. So does the phase where they still want to hold your hand walking into school, or the age where they think you're the funniest person alive.

Capturing childhood moments matters because the moments themselves don't wait. They just move on, whether you've photographed them or not.

A 2023 survey of Australian parents found that more than two-thirds reported regretting not taking more photos during their children's early years, with the biggest regret being missing the "everyday magic" of primary school age, not just the newborn stage.

Family Photography Brisbane - The Photographer Who Still Didn't Capture Enough

I tell you this as someone who photographs children for a living.

I am a professional family photographer with years of experience and more than a thousand families photographed. I have spent my career telling parents not to wait, to book the session, to capture this stage before it's gone.

And I still didn't capture enough of my own kids.

Those fairy photos are treasures. But I look back now and think of all the moments I didn't slow down long enough to capture. The Sunday morning pile-ons in bed or the way Charlotte used to narrate her entire day in the car like a tiny sports commentator. The faces they made at each other that I can describe but not show you.

I was there for all of it. I just didn't photograph it, because I thought there was time.

There was less time than I thought.

What the Magic Years Actually Look Like

The magic of childhood isn't just Santa and the tooth fairy. It's the whole era.

It's the age where they still believe in monsters under the bed AND superheroes who can fight them.

It's the gap-toothed grins before the adult teeth arrive. It's the age where they'll still let you read to them at night, still want to tell you every single thing that happened at school, still think you have all the answers.

It's the absolute conviction that birthday wishes come true if you blow out every candle. The handwritten letters to Santa that take forty-five minutes because the spelling matters. The Easter egg hunts where they genuinely don't know that you've hidden them, not the bunny.

Capturing childhood moments in this window, the in-between years where they're big enough to have personality but still young enough to believe in wonder, is one of the things I feel most strongly about as a photographer.

Because these years are wonderful. And they are temporary.

When the Magic Changes (Not Disappears)

Here's what I've noticed with my own girls: the magic doesn't disappear when they stop believing in Santa. It changes shape.

Sophie stopped believing in the tooth fairy soon before she stopped loving the ritual of leaving her tooth out and finding a coin in the morning. She knew - and she started saving her teeth "to put with the others I know you have somewhere"!

But when it came to Santa, she wanted it to continue. There's something beautiful about that, a kid who has outgrown the literal belief but still wants to hold onto the feeling.

The magic of childhood grows up with them. At fourteen and fifteen, my girls are still full of wonder about the world. They're just wondering about different things now. And they're still, occasionally, completely delightful to photograph.

But the specific kind of magic you can capture in photos changes significantly from the ages of about four to ten. After that, you're photographing a different kind of person. Still wonderful. Just different.

If you're in the middle of those years right now, this is the time.

Why Mums Keep Waiting (And Why It Costs Them)

"I keep meaning to book a session, but they grow so fast and things get busy and I'll do it next year."

I hear this every year. And every year, the kids are a year older.

There is no perfect time. There is no version of this where all the stars align and everyone is in a good mood and no one needs a haircut. The photos that mean the most are rarely the ones where everything was polished and planned.

They're the ones where someone laughed at the wrong moment, or two siblings leaned into each other without being asked, or a kid looked up at their mum with a face that said everything.

Those moments don't need perfect preparation. They need a photographer who knows how to find them.

I've been photographing Brisbane families from my Bunya studio for years and I have never once had a family say they wished they'd waited longer. Not once.

Capturing Childhood Moments Before This Season Passes

If your kids are still in the magic years, this is your nudge. Not a panic, a nudge.

Book the session. Get in the photos yourself. Let your kids run around and be exactly who they are right now, in this season, at this age. Because this version of them is temporary. And the photos you take today are the ones that will matter most in ten years.

My girls laugh at the fairy photos now. They think it's funny that they believed so completely in something that wasn't real.

But they also love those photos. They look at them and they can feel what it was like to be that age. To believe that fully. To sit very still in the garden holding something magical in the palm of their hand.

You can't recreate that feeling. You can only capture it while it's there.

If you're ready to capture this season before it passes, [INTERNAL LINK: get in touch with Tarsh here] and let's get your family in front of the camera before this moment moves on without you.

[ FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY BRISBANE ]

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About the Author

Natarsha March is an award-winning Brisbane newborn, baby and family photographer with over 15 years of experience and more than 1,600 families photographed. She is known for her relaxed, stress-free sessions where mums and kids actually enjoy themselves (yes, it is possible). Based in Bunya, Brisbane, Tarsh creates natural, heartfelt images that focus on real connection, not stiff poses. If you are looking for a trusted photographer in Brisbane who makes the whole experience feel easy, Family Photography by Natarsha March is your girl.