It was such a joy to be able to capture these pictures for Cayla to celebrate her step into adulthood. As part of jewish tradition, every young jewish girl celebrates her 12th birthday with a bat-mitzvah as she is now old enough to accept her religious responsibilities.

I have been taking pictures of Cayla since she was 5 weeks old, so to say it was an honour to be there to capture these special pictures is an understatement. As part of Cayla’s birthday celebrations, her mom Stacey, wanted me to design a Photobook that included 2 special shoots in the months leading up to the actual Bat-mitzvah, as well as the images that I had captured of her over the years. The book would be a keepsake for Cayla to look back on in years to come of this significant milestone in her life.

The Planning

Our first shoot was a family shoot done early in the year, when Cayla’s big brother Brett was home from Israel on a study break and the 2nd one was one that highlighted one of Cayla’s passions – singing!!! Once that was decided the planning began.  As mentioned, the first shoot was planned for when Cayla’s big brother was home on a study break from Israel. The shoot was a dream to put  together as Stacey had a very specific look and colour scheme already planned out for the party and co-ordinated everyone’s outfits  to match the scheme as these pictures would be part of the book that would be on display.

A special surprise that Stacey had organised for the Bat-Mitzvah was incorporating Cayla’s biggest passion – singing! to showcase her beautiful voice, she was going to have a song recorded with a music video to go along with it. This meant that our singing shoot was simply co-ordinating with the sound techs that were recording the audio. It was quite a different experience for me as I’d never actually been in an actual recording studio before and it was such fun!! We had the best time and Cayla was really in her element.

I hope you enjoy these images from the shoots that made it into the book that will forever be a memory for Cayla to treasure for her step into adulthood.

The family shoot

The recording Studio Shoot