The Importance of Authentic Family Photos

A couple weeks ago we began to unwrap the idea of authenticity in life and photography. The basic idea, if you haven’t read it yet, was that you have to be true to who you and your family are if you want the best results from your Family photo session. You cannot hope to have a great photo session if you walk into it trying to be someone else. You may walk away with a few decent pictures, but you will have missed out on an amazing experience to bond with your love ones and create an amazing memory that your family can cherish forever. Look, I get it. We all get a bit stuck in the “keeping up with the Jones’” mentality. We get slammed in the face with it every PTA meeting when Debbie from up the street with her perfect family and her perfect house waves her perfectly posed and perfectly adorable family photos in our not so perfect face as soon as we walk through the damn door…aahhhh the frustration is real. But you have to remember, that you are not the Jones’, unless you are in which case *high pitch and obviously fake voice “Hey Debbie, OMG your family is so amazing and perfect. You have to tell me where you got that dress for your daughter!” (UUUUGGHHHH, don’t judge me, you all have a Debbie too).

Aaannnnyyyways, a common theme I often hit on is that you are already amazing as you are. Regardless of any things you are working on or goals you may have, you are today just as you are meant to be. Don’t worry about what the Jones’ are doing. Don’t be envious of what they have. What they have is perfect for them, but you aren’t them so it’s not perfect for YOU. Focus on what you have and what is perfect for you and good things will come, I assure you. This is what it is to be authentic to who you are. If your home life is a bit messy and free and wild, your family photo shoot should be too! If your life is very prim and proper and neat then so should your photos. Ultimately, you want to walk away from your session feeling like you documented a great, but not completely out of the ordinary, day in your family’s life. You want to be able to look back at those photos and recall the fun that you had not just from “that one time we did photos” but from that entire portion of your life. Getting to look back at those moments is a gift, especially when your kids are going though weird phases and you can use it to poke fun at them in a few years HAHAHAHA…I’m a horrible father, but a really fun person, I promise.

So the point is, don’t be afraid or ashamed of who you are today. Don’t allow where others are at in the journey of their lives effect how you view the progress in yours. In 10 years time you will probably not remember what the Jones’ were doing, but you will absolutely still have that family photo session that you tried to model after them. I can tell you that, unlike a fine wine, an inauthentic photo session will not age well. You will look at those photos and not FEEL them. You will thumb through them and smirk once or twice without ever catching a case of the feels. You won’t have that emotional connection to those images because despite them containing the most important people in your world, YOU won’t be in them! However, if you go to your next photo session and be authentic to who you and your family are, you will look back at those family pictures and be flooded with the memories of the day. Those memories are what we are ultimately after, are they not? By being your authentic self you will walk away from your session knowing that you captured the essence of your family. When you get them back you will have a true representation of who you and your family are. And, hey, they may not be all perfectly posed with perfect smiles but you know what? They will be perfectly YOU. Ultimately, perfectly you is the the best kind of perfect there is. Then you can go and shove your perfectly you pictures in irritatingly perfect Debbie Jones’ face at next months PTA meeting and see how she likes it!

Do you have a Debbie Jones in your life? Are you a Debbie Jones? I would love to hear all about it in the comments!

-Dan

Authenticity in Life and Photography

For years, photography was thought of as being very formal and posed. Mom would schedule the session at JC Penny and do all of the shopping to get the clothes for the family portrait. She wanted that yearly update to the family photo to hang over the mantle for all to see. As the session drew closer she would begin to get overprotective of the kids, not wanting to have any little bump or bruise, especially on the faces, of any of the kids. Finally, the day of the session would arrive. Mom would have all of the clothes pressed and laid out for everyone and would make all of the final touches on everyones wardrobe to make sure it was just right. The youngest would immediately wipe snot on their shirt, Mom’s stress level would rise. The family then would jump in the car and head over to their session. By this point Mom had built the session out in her mind to such a high standard that the only possible out come was that the actual session wouldn’t live up. This of course led to hushed threats under Mom’s breath as to what would happen if you didn’t “smile right”, Mom’s stress level would rise further. Dad would become increasingly irritated at the whole thing, that he didn’t want to deal with in the first place, leaving Mom’s stress level to rise further still. Then the kids would start to lose patience, and the very little interest they had in the situation would slip right tough their tiny fingers. Then, Mom’s stress level would implode and all hell would break loose. If your family was anything like mine, what followed could only be described as a scene out of a National Lampoon’s Vacation movie. Mom would completely loose it, the photographer, panicked, would be doing everything they could to hold on to what little control they had left and Dad at some point would just throw his hands up and walk out, ultimately making the entire situation worse for everyone else. If Mom was lucky she would end up with one photo where, other than the pained expression on one kid’s face (from being pinched into compliance by Mom), everyone looked halfway decent but definitely not what she had wanted.

Hopefully for most of you that was just entertaining and in no way relatable. For everyone else, I know… I feel you… all we can do is look back and laugh and make sure that we do it differently. So, what was the point of that whole story? The point is that, back in the day, Mom was trying to fit the square peg in the round hole. No matter how hard she tried, and how beautiful her intentions were, it wasn’t going to fit. The problem was one of inauthenticity. Mom was looking for that photo that everyone else had, where everyone was just perfect and smiling and adorable and heartwarming and and and exactly the opposite of the the beautifully imperfect mess that was their life. What she wanted was SOMEONE ELSE’S family portrait. An image that, while very beautiful, was not in keeping with who they were as a family.

That begs the question, “What did they need to do to get their perfect picture?” BE THEMSELVES!!! They needed to be themselves, in all their hot mess glory (perfect descriptor for my perfectly imperfect family). They needed a photographer that wanted to be up and active to chase the kids and to run and play and engage and laugh and joke and just understand that the life that their family had made was perfectly imperfect and that was, well… perfect. They needed to get images of the kids leaping off the top of a jungle gym, sliding down the slide upside down and backwards and screaming at the top of their lungs. They need images of Dad jumping off the swings with the girls and Mom patching him up when he inevitably hurt himself. They needed images that show WHO THEY ARE. Images that strike at the heart of what it is to be a part of their family. The laughter, the tears, the anger and wry jokes all included.

So, what I am am trying to impress upon you is this. You are, as you are meant to be, right now. Next year, you will be as you are meant to be for next year. Maybe different, maybe the same, perfect either way. Embrace it. Love it. Document it. Our lives are ever changing, especially those of us with younger children running about. However, don’t get misled into thinking that what you have today isn’t worthy of remembering or documenting. The lessons and struggles that we learn and fight through today ARE what shape us into who we will become in the future. So in that sense, it is vital to document it. If only to serve as a marker for how far you have come. Ultimately the point is, regardless of who you are and where you are at in life, just be authentic and true to who you are. Understand that you are already perfectly you, regardless of how much growing you have ahead of you. Just know that there are Photographers out there that specialize in recognizing and capturing the “perfectly imperfect”. *Shameless self promotion ahead- Esmeralda and I specialize in doing just that! We capture those “fleeting moments” that define the love you share with your family. If you’re in the the Greater Seattle area and want a perfectly imperfect session of your own, you can schedule your consultation with us HERE.

What do you all think? Do you relate to the “perfectly imperfect” family, who (*awkwardly stressed expression*) in no way is indicative of my childhood? Do you like the posed photos where everyone is looking at the camera smiling or do you like the images that show a snapshot of your lifestyle? What does your dream Family or Couple Photo Session look like? Please let me know in the comments!

-Dan