Family photos for neurodivergent legends

Neurodivergent families

Family photography comes with a surprising number of weird little expectations.

Look here. Stand there. Smile. Stop doing that. Chill out. Slow down. Can everyone just cooperate for ONE SECOND PLEASE.

Yeah….so, how about we don’t do that?

Your family doesn't need to suddenly become a different family because I've turned up with a camera. We can slow down, speed up, change the plan, follow an interest, take a break or completely abandon whatever brilliant idea I had thirty seconds ago (please do, I love it when that happens).

I started this business for 22-year-old me

I was 22, a solo mum, with a little girl who had a bunch of serious diagnoses and experienced the world VERY differently to everyone else. My days were consumed with a whole lot of trying to figure out what worked. Family photography didn't feel particularly accessible to us at all. I couldn’t bear the thought of spending a photoshoot apologising, explaining or desperately trying to make my kid do things she simply wasn't going to do.

I wanted a photographer who understood and could work with us.

I didn’t find anyone.

So. I became one.

And over the years I've photographed a LOT of families who have felt the same way. Kids and adults who communicate differently, need more time, need less talking, need to move, need to stop, have big feelings, don't follow the usual photoshoot process or simply have absolutely zero interest in my excellent suggestions (cough cough).

I can say with my full chest: none of that makes a family difficult to photograph.

You don't have to explain your family to me

Tell me everything. Tell me the important bits. Tell me very little. If you've booked a Spicy Brains session, I already know neurodivergence is part of your family's world and we can talk about that as much or as little as you want.

You don't need to apologise for behaviour. You don't need to spend the whole shoot worrying about what I'm thinking. Very little surprises me, and disability and neurodivergence are completely normal parts of my world. It’s where I’m most comfortable. It’s what I know.

Your family gets to be your family. I'm SO good with that.

Who am I to wax poetic about disability? am I an authority? I don't fucking know.

I'm a photographer. I'm also someone who has spent the last 17 years raising a profoundly disabled child, working alongside a LOT of therapists, being part of the disability community and photographing a whole lot of neurodivergent and disabled adults and kids along the way. I spent ten years photographing kinders, I've worked professionally with disability and arts organisations, and I've learnt an enormous amount.

Do I know everything? Absolutely fucking not.

Which is precisely why I don't pretend I do.

Because frankly, I take this shit seriously.

Could I have made a social story myself? Yep. Could I have jumped into Canva and muddled together some visual supports? Probably.

But communication support isn't my profession. Photography is.

So I've worked with some incredible local Speech Pathologists to create resources specifically to support these photoshoots, including a social story, visual supports and a digital resource that can be added to AAC communication devices.

The resources are not there to teach your kid how to be "good" at having their photo taken. They're there to make what we're doing more familiar and understandable, reduce some of the anxiety around what to expect, and give your family more ways to communicate about what’s happening.

That matters to me. It’s what I would have wanted for my daughter.

And that’s how Spicy Brains came to be.

A family photography session specifically designed with neurodivergent families in mind.

There's more support before your session, fewer expectations during it and plenty of flexibility built into the whole thing. We'll choose somewhere that works for YOUR family, whether that's your backyard, a favourite park, whatever activity currently has everyone’s full attention, or somewhere you already know well.

Rocking, stimming, loud, quiet, fast, slow, complicated, hilarious, absolutely-not-doing-that-today families welcome.