Christmas at MANAWA
"Christmas has a way of bringing everyone together."
Sometimes that's your little family of three or four. Sometimes it's grandparents, grown-up children, cousins, aunties, uncles and the people who make your family feel like home.
The Christmas Family Experience is designed to photograph all of it — beautifully and naturally, without turning your family into a collection of staged Christmas photographs.
Christmas is simply the atmosphere.
The photographs themselves are about your family.
A little planning makes a big difference
For larger families and whānau, I'll help you create a simple photography timeline before your session.
We'll work out who needs to be photographed, which combinations are important to you and when particular family members need to be involved.
If grandparents or older family members are joining you, we'll prioritise their photographs early in the experience, while everyone is fresh and comfortable.
This also means we can keep things moving for little ones. Large family gatherings can be exciting — and sometimes a little overwhelming for children — so rather than expecting everyone to stand together for two hours, we'll build the session around smaller groups, individual portraits and time together.
You don't need to organise everyone on the day.
I'll take care of that.
Your Christmas Family Experience - $1399
- Up to 2 hours in the MANAWA studio
- Two outfit changes
- Access to the MANAWA wardrobe
- Christmas-inspired studio styling, kept elegant and timeless
- A mixture of individual portraits, smaller family groupings and photographs of everyone together
- 25–30 fully edited images, with additional images possible for larger families and whānau
- Secure private online gallery with download access
- Your cinematic viewing experience
- Three stunning 30 × 45cm ChromaLuxe artworks
Three pieces of artwork, chosen for your home
I wanted this experience to work beautifully whether you're a family of three or a much larger whānau.
Rather than including six pieces of artwork simply because that is what a larger family might need, your experience includes three beautiful 30 × 45cm ChromaLuxe prints.
You can choose the photographs that mean the most to you — perhaps one of everyone together, one of the children and one of you as parents.
Or something completely different.
Your home, your family and your story will decide.
If you'd like additional 30 × 45cm ChromaLuxe artwork for other family members or spaces in your home, you can reserve additional pieces when booking your experience for $299 each.
The individual artwork price is $480, so reserving additional pieces in advance gives you a meaningful saving while ensuring you have everything you need from the beginning.
Christmas, without the cliché
You won't find a room covered in Christmas props at MANAWA.
Instead, Christmas will be woven gently into the experience — beautiful seasonal details, warm atmosphere and just enough Christmas magic to remind you when these photographs were created.
Because I want you to still love these photographs years from now.
When Christmas has passed.
When the children are bigger.
When your family has changed again.
The photographs should still belong in your home.
For every kind of family
Your family doesn't have to look a certain way to belong here.
Perhaps it's parents and children.
Perhaps it's three generations together.
Perhaps your grown-up children have come home for Christmas.
Perhaps your whānau is large, loud, wonderfully complicated and impossible to fit into one photograph.
That's exactly why we'll plan it together.
I'll make sure we capture the important combinations, the individual personalities and the photographs that bring everyone back together.
And if someone needs a little break, we'll work around that too.
The MANAWA experience
After your session, your images are carefully prepared for your private cinematic viewing experience.
This is where you see your photographs properly for the first time and choose the images that will become your three included pieces of artwork.
There is no rushed viewing.
No pressure.
Just time to see your family as I have seen them through my camera.
Your finished ChromaLuxe artwork is then carefully prepared for your home.
Christmas Artwork - IMPORTANT
If you'd love to have your MANAWA artwork ready to enjoy in your home for Christmas, please book your session as early as possible.
For sessions held during October, please allow approximately four weeks from your session to your artwork being ready for collection.
This gives us time to prepare your images, complete your cinematic viewing experience and carefully create your finished artwork.
If having your artwork ready for Christmas is important to you, early booking is recommended.
Because families are always becoming
One day, someone will be taller.
Someone will have moved away.
The little ones will no longer fit on your lap.
And the family photograph you almost didn't make time for will become one of the most important photographs in your home.
Christmas gives us a reason to gather. But the photographs are about so much more than Christmas. They're about who you were together.