ART PARTY: CORINNE SHEPPARD
Art Party is a celebration of the art we create and the story behind it.
Each feature includes a curated list of questions to help you dig deeper into sessions you may see on Instagram and want to learn more about.
If you have a session, series, or collection you would like to celebrate, send me an email with all the details and a link to the gallery.
MEET CORINNE
Photography, for me, has always been about feeling. I was the little girl staging playground photoshoots with a disposable film camera, later graduating to a hot pink digital (you know the one!) snapping every party, night club, and gathering just to remember how it all felt.
I’m fascinated by how quickly today becomes yesterday. That’s why I romanticise my life so deeply. I believe the ordinary is extraordinary, and I refuse to rush through it. If I can inspire people to notice the beauty they’re living right now, before it becomes the thing they miss most, then I’ve done something worthwhile.
It’s heartbreakingly fleeting…
Because they’re the ones that slip away the fastest. The laundry on the floor, a cup of tea going cold on the bench, little hands tugging at your dress, that’s real life, and it’s heartbreakingly fleeting. As a mum, I feel that in my bones. My eldest is eight now, and those toddler-at-my-feet days feel like a lifetime ago. These younger years truly are golden, even when they feel chaotic. I want families to have proof of how beautiful their everyday life really was, because one day they’ll ache for it the way I do.
The heartbeat of the home…
The toys exactly where the kids left them, the art board mid‑creation, the camera waiting to be picked up, they’re tiny anchors of memory. Those details are the heartbeat of a home. They tell you who lives there without needing faces in the frame. When the children are grown, these are the things that will spark nostalgia instantly. They’re the texture of family life, and I love weaving them into a story so the gallery feels lived-in and personal.
The beautifully curious…
I simply asked Mum and Dad to sit together on the bench, and their daughter wandered over in the most perfect, unscripted way. She looked up at them with this mix of admiration and curiosity, and it stopped me in my tracks. It was such a gentle interruption, the kind that makes documentary work magic. That frame is one of my favourites because it’s exactly what real life looks like: Children, beautifully curious, naturally weaving themselves into the moment without being asked. Mum and Dad instinctively paused, giving her their unhurried attention, and for a split second, nothing else mattered. You couldn’t have directed it if you tried.
The art of noticing…
The session itself was beautifully organic, but getting there took a few pivots, rain, rescheduling, and the usual dance of life. In the end, it gifted us the most stunning golden light, so I’m always reminded that flexibility often leads to something better. The biggest lesson for me is to keep watching: where the family naturally pauses, where the kids gravitate, how the light moves through the home. Documentary work is less about directing and more about noticing, and this session reaffirmed that.
10 years from now…
I hope these photos hit them right in the chest. I want them to feel the weight of their child’s small body on their hip, hear the giggles echoing down the hallway, remember how the home smelled at 9 am on a Saturday. I want them to pull these images from a box one day and be transported back into the warmth of this season. If they yearn for these days again, even just for a moment, then I’ve done my job.
