Today I would like to talk about what means documentary family photography to me.
Maybe for some people, the maternity dream is something like a perfect family in a perfect daily routine. But sometimes reality becomes completely different. It’s like those memes of expectations versus reality, where expectations are a perfectly happy family picture and reality only shows mess and chaos.
I think it’s important not to drop the ball, to stay still and strong and to know how to see beauty even in this chaotic and out of control reality. You have to be flexible. You have to be patient. You have to be aware that you cannot have control over everything when you have kids.
You still have to be very brave to let a photographer go inside your life and expose your vulnerabilities and not be afraid of that. Gabi e Nando, you are brave people! You were not ashamed to be who you are and I admire you for that! And I am not talking about public exposure, but about being brave for allowing yourselves to see how you truly are, without retouches or poses. So much better than being perfect is being real, and that’s when you become so beautiful, as people and as a family. You are beautiful!
Thank you so much for letting me show you to yourselves! For opening your house and letting me register this slice of your lives, with all its pains and delights!
I really believe that the chaotic and beautiful daily truth is what we’d like to remember with documentary family photography and what we’d like our children to remember. I hope that by showing the emotion, connection, and tenderness of a family’s real life, I will help them to appreciate what is before them: the beautiful in the simple.
I hope that mums start to feel pride in this raw and imperfect nature of maternity. Maybe that’s a message for myself, so I will not forget it when I’m a mum. Maybe this way we can reduce frustrations for not being that perfect and we can feel wholehearted about reality. The real maternity is beautiful! That’s what I believe in!
Considering all that, the proposal was a documentary family photography session, spending a day with the family, without interventions or poses, registering their real every day. Do you want to see the result? Turn up the volume, press play and come feel it!
And if you want to check other pictures of this beautiful family I photographed since the beginning of the pregnancy, check below:
- Family photo session in their home in the beginning of the pregnancy
- Baby shower
- Pregnancy photos in their home in the end of the pregnancy
- Birth photos
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[…] If you have interest on register a day in your family life, contact me on [email protected] I live in London, but also available to travel. Or check this example of a documentary family photo session. […]
[…] Documentary photos: this is perhaps the least known category for many people. Even tough documentary photography is not new as a style, it has begun to become a bit more popular for commercial family photography in recent years. In this case, the photographer spends time with the family recording their day to day, not interfering in what happens. It can be a whole day or a few hours, and the result is usually quite authentic, since no family is the same. The photographer will be recording not only the connection of you and how you look, but also the essence and small details of the family’s routine. The photos don’t take place in a specific location because they are according to family activities. It can be at your home, on the street, at school, in the car or during your vacation activities, for example. You can search for this style by documentary or photojournalism. […]