Brand Photography Session for Everlasting Memories
Branding Session and interview with the owner about their business and how brand photography can help them share their message.
Who’s Olivia?
I’m Olivia and I’m the founder of Everlasting Memories, which is where you come for 3D castings. I usually like to show bonds of families through the casting. So usually they’re holding hands, they could be single cast of newborn babies, we also do bereavement casts as a memory to treasure and also do pet castings too.
What is Everlasting Memories about?
So Everlasting Memories, for me, is all about memories. And with 3D casting, it usually shows love, bonds, really a connection, which is why I love it. So it could be relationships, it could be partners that you’re doing it with, it could be your sons, your daughters, your mom, your Nan. It just gives you that forever bond and instead of like a picture, which you can look at, you can physically hold the memory.
You can see every little detail of their hands.
And for me, I started because of the meaning of it. When I had two children, one of the first things I’d done was cast their hands. And now to look back at photos and think, oh that looked look tiny. But then to see their hands and think you were once this tiny is just unbelievable.
So that’s what I want to do for families, I really want to be able to capture memories that they can treasure forever. Whether that be tiny babies, adults – just is an everlasting memory.
What are the benefits of a 3D cast?
It’s like a memory frozen in time. So again with babies you easily forget, you think you remember but until you see that hand of your now five-year-old and when they’re a newborn baby, it sort of reminds you of how small they once were and all those moments that come with it.
So when they were born and your thoughts, your feelings, it brings back emotion. So in the cast, I think it benefits you because it gives you that memory, it reflects a time that you love. So also with bereavement cast, if you’ve sadly lost someone, you want as many memories of them as possible. So with a cast, you can still hold their hand, you can look at every little tiny detail, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting about it.
You can have pictures, which are just as beautiful, but this one you hold, and the thought of holding their hand forever, even when you think they’re not here anymore, that’s always with you.
What have you been up to?
So in the last six months, it’s been amazing. So I surprisingly got nominated for Pride in Medway, which I was completely shocked about, and it was for good care. So it means that someone felt my passion and knew that this wasn’t just a job.
I love to create memories, be part of that and just share that happiness at that moment and know that they can take it away with them. So someone nominated me for that reason which meant I went into a room with hundreds of incredible people who have all helped like the community and lots of charities there. And it was just nice to be in that room and know that someone recognised that I’m here to help.
Aside from that, we’ve also been doing lots more castings. I think people are starting to get out there a bit more knowing that I exist really, which is nice. And so I’ve had lots of families have recently done, holding hands cast for mum, dad and son, which is lovely. And a dad and his newborn baby, it’s their first child. So it was like showing the bond of the dad and little girl. There’s countless at the minute to be honest, which is brilliant
Tell me about the charities you work with.
So, I first started working with Forever Finley, which is an incredible charity, that casts sleeping babies.
So we go out to families, I cover Kent and the founder, Charlotte and Rob they cover Essex. What we do is aim to create memories with the parents and babies. I cast so that you can look back and say we’ve done this with him or we’ve done this with her. We like to also talk about the baby as much as possible. So we say about, the features, their hands, they’ve got lovely dimples in their knuckles and all the little wrinkles in their feet. And we laugh and say about their feet big like dad’s or they’ve got mum’s hair. And it’s just a really beautiful moment because we want to make the memory as nice as possible in the most heartbreaking situation.
So we set up a support group for parents that we meet so they can all come together and say, “I feel this, is it normal?” or just rant a little bit because a big thing with losing a baby is the taboo around it, what people do and don’t say.
They wrote me a Christmas card, but my baby wasn’t in it and he still exists. Or, I tried to talk to friends about it, but they kind of change the subject or people who’ve completely blanked me ever since. And it’s all these emotions that if you haven’t had anyone around you that you know, that has also had this, you kinda feel alone. So with this group, we’re hoping that the mums and the dads can come together and say, “I felt this, have you been through it?” It’s really lovely and we’ve also got now little cards with a little poem on them that are going go with the baby when they’re laid to rest and the parents a have one too. So it’s a forever connection. And it also says about them being the brightest star so that we know that whenever they see a star, they know it’s a sign, they know that that’s the little one saying, “You know what? “I’m okay like, don’t worry.”
Another thing we’re trying to do is to get into universities & hospitals and Charlotte and Rob to do a conference so that they can share their story about Finley and hopefully if it just goes into like one midwife or someone at the university that’s learning midwifery, it can hopefully save lives of babies that are unfortunately lost through medical negligence. So, we want to help parents when their baby’s born sleeping but we also wanna do our best to try and prevent us even having to go to the said family in that circumstance and maybe meet them under a different circumstance.
I also liaise with Ross from #dadsandlads. He also has another charity Nine4Norah because his little girl was born and died shortly after nine hours.
So he started that charity. He’s been doing lots of charity runs to raise money to help other bereaved parents. And then what got me most and what made me get in contact with Ross as he said in the start of 2020, January, he’s going to open a charity which helps dads and lads mental health-wise.
So that hit me. I lost my stepdad in October to suicide and leading up to his death it felt that there was no one to help. It wasn’t that we didn’t reach out, it was that everyone was, “We’re going to do this,” but it never happened. And just to sort of put me in his mindset a little bit and think, it’s not that you don’t want to get help, you tried to get help, but no one would help you. And you’re already in that mindset that no one cares and that the world’s better off without you.
To go to a health service that essentially paid to help you, but you don’t the help, time and time again, you can feel at a loss. And it’s almost implementing that feeling even more that no one cares. So when Ross said that he was going to do this and run days out with men where you don’t have to talk therapy, you don’t have to say, “Oh how are you feeling?” And be put on the spot. It’s just you going out with a group of lads and you know that they’re all there because they’re all struggling but whether you choose to talk about it or not, you don’t have to. It’s just that comfort zone and that support system that you know is there, I think is life-changing and I just wish it was there before I lost my stepdad. I’m running a raffle to try to raise as much money and awareness as possible because I think it’s important and I think it’s needed.
What plans do you have for Everlasting Memories in the future?
For the next six months, I plan to continuously build awareness of my business and the charities as well. I think it’s important that everyone knows I exist, so they know where to get help. We’re hoping with Forever Finley to get in all of Kent hospitals, which has been a little bit of a struggle. I think it’s more liaising with them and I think they need to meet us as a team to know what it is about, what the castings are about, what we aim to do, how we handle the parents. And also with the men’s mental health charity, even once I finish raising money, I really want to help them get awareness just because there are so many people struggling and with Kent, being the biggest rate in suicides, I think something needs to change.
Because you hear of the stories every day but when you sit and think about not only what that person’s going through, but the whole family. It’s like the ripple effect of how it’s affecting people, which I don’t think people realise that if someone’s saying they want take their life, they’re not just saying it for attention, they’re saying it because they want you to see that and help them. And then if the help’s not there, you almost, like I said before, you feel like it’s true, no one cares.
I wanna build awareness, just to know that people know I’m there if they need me. They may not want to, or they may use someone else, who knows? But read my reviews and hear what other people are saying that have come to me. To know that I am different from the rest because it’s not just a job, it’s a passion. And I want that love and affection that you’ve got with whoever you’re casting, whether that be yourself or with your partner, I want it to shine through. And I want them to know that every step of the way, it’s their cast and I will help create the perfect cast for them.
How will you use the video and Photo from Graham Baker Photography?
So with the video and the photos, I’m hoping to again, just build awareness. I’d like to help my business be seen but more importantly the charities because the charity is about taboos that no one talks about, men’s mental health, in particular, babies born sleeping.
I think people need to see it, people need to talk about it and it could help families so, so much. And it brings hope and breaking that silence of do we talk about it? Do we not talk about it? You need to talk about it because those people are wanting to talk about it because they need your guidance, they need your support, they need something around them to help them in the most devastating time. And so if this video can bring anything, I hope it just gets someone to talk and reach out.
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