My ‘Why’ Documentary Family Photography

Anyone who owns a business is often asked the age old question- why? Sometimes finding your why can be a personal and complicated journey. I’ve been a documentary family photographer for over seven years and my why has evolved through the years. I’d like to share with you my journey with photography and how it’s led to my why.

The Early Years

I started out with a camera and absolutely no fucking clue how to use it. Yes, I dabbled in film photography through high school and fell in love with the dark room, but digital was a beast that I had no idea how to conquer. After spending a lot of time and money on figuring out how to use a camera and the intricacies of post processing; I needed to figure out what I wanted to photograph. The business of being a photographer is saturated and anyone with a camera phone can snap a photo and call it art. I suppose all art is subjective, but finding my voice in my photos is something that is so important to me. I want to make photos but more importantly, I want my photos to capture what it is i’m trying to say. When I first started out, I had nothing to say. I was making photos of people on the beach, posed, stale and boring. Engagement photos, traditional family portraits, etc. I was bored. I wasn’t feeling creative in a way I was hoping. Posing people felt so awkward and unnatural for me. I’ve never felt comfortable telling people what to do, so saying “look at each other and laugh” made me want to throw my camera into a lake. I had a mom complain about a field that I scouted because of the burs, her kid was having a tantrum because he was uncomfortable in his outfit and it was past his bedtime (we will do anything for that golden hour light) and that’s when I realized that I don’t want to be dragging families into random fields during bedtime routines and bribing them to smile. It all feels very unnatural, awkward, and disingenuine to who I am and what I wanted my photos to say. I went on Pinterest and typed “unposed in home family photos” and went down a rabbit hole of documentary family photography.

How my voice has changed through the years

I’ll never forget my first session. I knew only three friends who had kids and I asked them if it would be okay if I came over to photograph them for a normal Sunday morning at their house. Alex, Tatiana, and Kirsten- if you read this- THANK YOU for your vulnerability and willingness to help me find my voice. The sessions were FUN. I hung out with friends and snapped photos that lit a fire within me. I craved more. I spent even more money and time on my craft. Finding people who might be interested in such a niche style of photography was (and still is) hard. I did about ten free sessions to build my portfolio. Then I had Olive, and everything changed. My photography shifted into stories about childhood. Having a child awoke my inner child and allowed me to see things in a different perspective. My photos were fun and full of wonder. I wanted to tell the story of childhood because it satisfied a feeling that I think most of us yearn for- nostalgia. But, being lost in motherhood feels like being left alone in an escape room with no lights and no clues. Everyone seems to have gotten out easily and you wonder how? I’ll tell you a secret- they either haven’t gotten out or they’ve lied. When I finally came to this realization that parenthood is this bizzare, amazing, exhausting, scary, beautiful and absurd experience that people aren’t honest about; everything changed again.

My Why

I thought I had a good grasp on what parenthood would look like, turns out I was a silly and ignorant fool. I think we are being fed this narrative that parenthood is this beautiful and clean experience that leaves us fulfilled in every way (nice try, Vance). In reality, parenthood is a clusterfuck of emotions and nobody knows what they’re doing. Which isn’t a bad thing! How lucky are we to get to experience life. As humans we get to experience love, loss, joy, pain, and everything in between. And I want to photograph it all. Not just the beautiful instagram worthy golden hour photos. But, the photos of families dancing in their “lived in” kitchens, wrestling a diaper on their screaming infant, kissing away tears from a boo boo after playing in the backyard, the walls covered in crayon and family photos, cooking dinner as a family, the bath that leaves the bathroom looking like a waterpark, cuddling on the couch for a movie, reading books for bedtime. I want to photograph genuine moments. unscripted, unstaged, & unfiltered. I think we owe it to parents everywhere to be a little more honest about what parenthood looks like. My why has changed through the years, and I am prepared for it to continue shifting as I grow. But, right now I think my why is simply this-

Parenthood is everything all at once. Let’s remember it in all of it’s absurdly beautiful and bizzare glory.