I LOVE Large Family Sessions!

So many wedding photographers dread family formal time. I get it. A wedding day is super creative and then family formals seem to kill that creativity. Plus, you don't have the time to be creative. It makes sense that it's the least favorite part of the day for so many wedding photographers. But as a portrait photographer, I LOVE large families because I feel like I can be very creative!

Large families, whether they are Mom and Dad and a lot of kids or an extended family session, offer almost endless possibilities when it comes to poses and groupings. It's so much fun!! And if you are not dealing with a whole lot of young kids, you can get poses that you would normally not have the attention span to get. For instance, when I have older kids in front of my camera, I can do Mom with each kid, Dad with each kid, Mom with the girls, Mom with the boys, Dad with the girls, and Dad with the boys. Older kids can handle the greater volume of poses asked of them.

With extended families, it's a similar idea, only the groupings change a little bit. You now have cousins, aunts and uncles, multiple nuclear families, and the like.

But it's not just how much fun we have (though we do have a lot of fun) or the creativity and options that I have (though that is also a plus). What I really love about large families is the interactions. I can't quite explain it, but there is an intimacy and closeness about large families. It's like you can see how they are with one another more and see their love.

That's not to say that you can't see it with smaller families - you absolutely can! But it somehow seems amplified when you add more people and I love it.

I view myself as a documentor of your family. I pose, I guide, but apart from that guidance, I let you be yourself and I capture that. I love to see families laughing and interacting with each other. What I get to experience that others can't see in the photos are the things that happen "off screen". The jokes and the teasing. You see the results in the photos, but only that family and myself got to experience it. And that is something I greatly cherish. The privilege and honor to witness a family loving on each other and then capturing that in a photograph.

Are you part of a small family or a large one? Have you experienced what I'm talking about with larger groups feeling more connected?




Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash