I think that one of the things that holds a lot of people back from booking a Day In The Life session is that they canāt picture what their images will look like. When you schedule a portrait session, you choose your photographer for their style, you plan your clothing, you plan your location, and you choose a specific time of year and day to get the look you want. You can conjure up a pretty good image in your head of how your pictures are going to turn out. For a lot of people, that feels good, and like a safe bet for your money.
Itās a lot harder to try to imagine what your images would look like if you booked a Day In The Life session. And when you canāt picture it, it feels risky to spend your hard-earned money on it.
So try this: instead of imagining the images youāll get at the end of your Day In The Life session, imagine a few things you love about your life right now. Think about them. Maybe it's the morning tickle fests with your littlest. Maybe it's the few minutes of peace you get on Saturday mornings when your partner takes over cereal and cartoon duty. Maybe it's the way your six year old suddenly looks way older after she's lost a few teeth. Maybe it's Friday pizza nights, or autumn walks at the beach with the dogs, or shopping dates with your daughter.Ā
Now imagine yourself in twenty years, your kids visiting home for a weekend. Imagine that you pull out the album from your Day In The Life session and you all huddle together on the couch with cocktails and flip through images of what your life actually looked like. Imagine the memories and stories that those images will spark. Imagine the smiles. Imagine the laughs. Can you picture it?
I truly believe that documentary family photography is like a love letter to your family. It's a way of telling your kids--and yourself!--that you appreciate this life that you're living right now. Sure, there are tough parts. There are things that you want to change. But that's the thing -- it all keeps changing and if you're anything like me, you forget the details and how it all felt.
If a documentary family photography session sounds like something you'd be interested in, please contact me. Let's talk!
PS. The kind folks over at Documentary Family Photographers Worldwide (I bet you didnāt even know that was a thing!) have an ongoing series of blog posts showing what documentary family photography sessions look like, and how they differ from āregularā photo sessions. If you need more help picturing the types of images a Day In The Life session can give you, check out these posts with images from photographers around the world: