Lifestyle, Candid Approach To Sessions // Ever Wonder Why

You may have heard photographers talking about documenting. Wedding photographers document a day and portrait photographers document a season of life. Documenting something is so much more than just taking photos. It's capturing moments and personalities. It's freezing time so that you can go back and remember who you were at a given point in history. This is why I take a lifestyle, candid approach to my sessions.

It is important to get those photos of your family or your kid(s) looking at the camera and smiling. But you know what photos get shared on social media and hung on canvases on your wall? It's the photos that show emotion and connection.

What does it mean to take a lifestyle, candid approach to photos? For me, it means to give you prompts and direction that gets you interacting with one another. It means documenting your family and capturing what makes you unique. I encourage clients to choose locations that have meaning to them and to bring props that showcase who they are.

I get my clients moving and interacting. I want you to have fun and enjoy this time together. For many families, they don't get a lot of time where they are all together. We are a busy society. So this time is precious.

At the end of the day, I give directions and prompts but then I capture whatever comes from that. I can only control what my clients do with my instructions so much and how they interpret them leads to wonderful surprises. When I tell a child to hug their sibling or give baby a kiss, how they do that is not up to me and I get the joy of seeing how they follow that instruction. I may tell a child to say something funny that Dad says but I don't control their reactions to that phrase. I'm the guide but I leave room for my clients to be themselves. That's what lifestyle, candid sessions mean to me.


How about you? Do you prefer posed or candid moments? What would you be more likely to frame?