What is Documentary Family Photography?

There are a lot of phrases and keywords that float around the photography world, such "lifestyle", "documentary", "fine art", "contemporary", "glamour", "candid", "tradition", "editorial", and the list goes on. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the myriad of terms, making it difficult to find the photographer that will capture the exact kind of photos you want.

So today, I want to explain what documentary family photography is, and why I'm so excited to be offering it for families in the Central Michigan area!

Documentary photography is unique because it focuses on capturing what's happening in real time vs. posing the subjects to make a "perfect" image. Instead of being directed to "look here, put your hand there, smile at the camera", during a documentary session I become a fly on the wall, documenting the reality of your family life and what it truly looks like in the day-to-day.

Everyone's clothes don't match? Totally okay! Toys on the floor? Great! Flour all over the kitchen counter after a fun afternoon baking with your kids? Excellent!

When you book a documentary family session, you are committing to having your life documented in a way that is not only more true to who you are as a family, but in a way that will also be more special to look back on. Everyone loves a pretty, posed family photo for their Christmas card, but when your children look back on the images from their childhood, the ones that will mean the most to them are the ones that show what life really looked like. The messiness & chaos included.

Why Choose A Documentary Photographer?

Have you ever booked a family session, only to be overwhelmed with style guides, clothes shopping, stressing about finding the perfect makeup and hair look, and making sure no one snacks in the car on the way to the photo shoot lest crumbs - or worse - ruin the photo shoot you paid for?

Documentary family photography meets you where you're at. It doesn't change you or demand that you be someone other than who you are. It celebrates the uniqueness of your life instead of creating a cookie-cutter mold for you to fit in, along with everyone else.

Are you someone who normally dresses up, with a full face of makeup? Great, that's what you'll look like in your documentary session. But do you normally sport a mom bun, little-to-no makeup, and that favorite t-shirt from high school you never want to let go of? That's the side of you that your children are going to remember, and what they'll want to see when they look through the family album in 30 years.

Pretty pictures are nice, but documentary images are emotional. They are the shots that will bring back waves of memories as you are showing them to your grand children. They are the images that will show future generations what your life looked like, not just how nice you all looked when you got color-coordinated clothes and stood in a pretty park at golden hour.

One day, these will be the images that mean the most. Not perfect, just perfectly imperfect.

What About Films?

A picture is worth a thousand words, but there's an aspect of life that can't be captured through still images -- sound. The 3D world is difficult to capture through a 2D medium. This is why I'm excited to start offering documentary family films. Because when you look back at your rosy-cheeked toddler, there's nothing as adorable as listening to their lisping first words and watching their waddling steps in motion.

Family films go hand-in-hand with documentary photography, giving you a well-rounded time capsule of memories that will be revisited over and over again, generation after generation.

Booking Your Session

Documentary sessions are longer than the average portrait session, because I take time to enter your family and let the kids warm up to me before I get to shooting (the warm-up time varies greatly family-to-family). I also want to make sure I spend enough time with your family to document a well-rounded "day in the life". So these sessions range from 3-5 hours.

Due to the nature of the time-intensive sessions, paired with the huge amount of photo and video editing required for each one, I take a very limited number of documentary clients every year. So if this is something you're interested in, I recommend reaching out right away, even if you don't plan to do the shoot for another few months because I will book out in advance.

Don't wait. Let's chat about capturing your family's memories today.