Need a little help deciding whether to book a documentary family session or not? Here are a five reasons why you’ll want to book one!
1. MEMORIES
Do you have old family albums? What are your favourite photos to look back on? Believe me, the Sears photos are hilariously PRICELESS, but my absolute favs are the ones where we are in the living room and you can see those leopard print curtains and the plaid couch, the cringe-worthy unsafe carseat you’re strapped into, the vintage toys…how you remember your family and home growing up. Don’t those photos bring back MEMORIES of your childhood? They’re not just pictures.
2. YOUR HOME
Do you remember your childhood home(s)? We moved every few years as I was growing up, but I still remember every house, at least vaguely or from what I’ve seen in home videos or photos.
Wouldn’t it be amazing to have photos (or video, video is magic) of all the little details of your childhood home for you and your children to look back on? Photos of you IN your home, living life, where you are raising your children. A little snippet into the NOW of your family. Such a treasure.
3. PREPARATION
Ok. I don’t know if you’ve had traditional family photos done before with small children, but they are literally a nightmare. FIRST you start looking on Pinterest for the perfect colour scheme and style. NEXT you spend hours upon hours online and in stores searching for said outfits. You wait weeks and weeks, and your online orders haven’t arrived, and your session is in 5 days! But finally, they arrive two days before your session, PHEW! THEN the day before your session, you change your mind on two of the kids shirts and go back to two stores to return them and another three stores to find new ones.
DAY OF THE SESSION…you got this. The session HAS to be in the evening at sunset, because you need pretty light. You pack 8000 snacks in the morning (because at least you can rule out one thing for the kids to cry about during the session). Lie everyone’s outfits out. Pack emergency backup outfits. About 2 hours before your session, you feed the kids dinner, get yourself ready, then get them all dressed (this MUST be the order, someone will spill something on their clothes if you don’t do it this way). Take everyone to the bathroom and change diapers. At this point your toddler is having a meltdown and refuses to wear the shoes you bought for them because they are not “Paw Patrol” shoes. You finally “reason” with the toddler and allow him to wear his favourite shoes for the drive and he agrees to change when you get there. Someone needs to pee again. By the time you’ve loaded everyone in the minivan, you’re 15 minutes late and you will only have 20 minutes before the sun goes down to get all the photos of your family. During the session, everyone (including your significant other) is miserable, your toddler is melting down, nobody cares how much money you spent on this photographer or how much you just want some family photos to hang on your walls, they’re cold and tired and need to go to bed.
It’s exhausting.
Documentary family sessions are literally the complete opposite of this. Let your kids dress themselves, wear your favourite leggings and hoodie, leave the breakfast dishes on the table until dinner, like it happens every day, play in the backyard, make dinner, let your kids get messy, be authentically you and throw away all the stress and worry that normally comes with a family photo session. The only thing you need to prepare for is to HAVE FUN.
4. NO POSING
My kids are a nightmare to pose, no matter how much candy I bribe them with. Maybe it’s because they’ve grown up with a camera in their face? Maybe not.
But really, who likes being told what to do for an hour!? Let’s make this session enjoyable for everyone (including any…adults, ahem, who may not be super into a family photo session)
5. ALL ABOUT YOU
Mama. When are you in the photos? Will your kids have photos of YOU doing life with them? GET IN THOSE PHOTOS. Put them all over your walls, print albums that will become filled with sticky fingerprints. Show your kids how much you love them, look at those photos and see how your children look at you, how beautiful they think you are, and how love just fills your home. It’s easy to miss when you’re living it.
Thinking about video? Imagine having a beautiful film of your family, the movements, their sweet voices, how they walk, wrestle and cry. Video is pure magic.
Get in the photos. Get in that video. Book the in-home documentary session. You won’t regret it.
What are your options? Two hours, half a day or a full day. Photo or Video!