Documentary family photography is an amazing type of photography. You should definitely consider adding it to your family’s photography collection. Here are five awesome things about it.
1. It's your family's actual life, activities, and routines that will be captured!
Capturing your family’s life together is creating a visual journal of the things in your life you love most right now. As parents, we really do this all the time. We see that our child is getting really close to riding his bike for the first time. Quick, someone get the camera! Or your child made an adorable little mess with the flour while baking cookies with you for the first time? Uh oh, but I mean c’mon you gotta have a picture of that! It will be funny later. It’s fun having photos of your children with their favorite toys and that one shirt they wanted to wear over and over again and kept rescuing from the hamper. Or maybe you catch your children having a quiet, loving moment together if only to prove to yourself that these moments do happen. These are emotional, relationship, and moment drive photos. These are what documentary life photography is all about.
2. Mess is welcome!
Kids can be crazy messy. Remember all that stress you have preparing and making it to the family photo day. The bribes, the whining. Well, that’s all gone for these sessions. If your kid gets messy it’s really all part of the story we are telling. You gotta a messy kid. I do too. We can embrace it with this style of photography.
3. Chaos is welcome!
Chaos honestly makes for amazing photos. Your photographer can bring order to that chaos. I know it’s hard on us as parents when everything seems to be unraveling, and with a portrait session this can feel really stressful. But with documentary sessions, remember we are just telling the story of your normal days. My normal days often have chaos. There are just those moments where everything coincides to create some messy moments. This too shall pass. And you will have some pictures to remember it. It may not even feel so bad 20 years from now.
4. It's really easy
When you have a family documentary session you are inviting a photographer to capture your family’s current activities. You can do these in your home, that’s where most families are most comfortable and cozy and most themselves. There are no real plans to make or outfits to buy because your normal day clothes reflect who you are right now. You don’t need to schedule the perfect time or worry about getting out the door on time with everyone still in a good enough mood to smile. It’s probably easier on camera shy people because they are at ease in their own home. You just hang out and be your every day normal selves.
5. It's your legacy
I think of these photos of your family life as a wonderful thing to have and enjoy right now. My children love seeing all the photos I take of them and hang up in our kitchen. They love flipping through the little photo books we make. But these photos are also so much more. They are a gift that you will pass on to your children one day and their children. They are images that your grandchildren will see of you one day. And they may be images where grandma and grandpa now are present. Documenting your parents with your children is beautiful. When you have a documentary session, you are passing down photos that are an actual piece of your history. What an amazing thing for them to have!
6. Real life can be hilarious!
One more reason that family life photography is awesome is because it can be really funny. Now, I know it’s not always super funny as you are going through it. But usually when it’s all said and done and we have all survived the fiasco, it really is funny. Having a sense of humor over the whacky things that happen to us as parents is part of what gets me through the challenging parts! Kids are amazing, but they are curious creates and do some really funny stuff. I really capturing and finding the humor in these moments. We definitely need it as parents.
Documentary family life photography is an up and coming style of photography. I hope that I’ve explained what it’s like having your family photographed in this way, and why it can be a really awesome style of photography!
If you’re interested and would like to try out this style of photography please reach out. I’d love to hear more. If you have concerns let me know! Sometimes I offer tiny trial sessions for people to see if it’s right for them. Let know and maybe we can set up a trial session for your family.