Lifestyle Photos are More Important than Posed, and Here’s Why…

Those pregnancy cravings are no joke. 

This is me, at the end of my pregnancy with my oldest son. I lived in Amsterdam, NL where my cravings for sugary cereal were hard to meet. My mom has just arrived to be with me for his birth, and she brought with her several boxes of my ultimate late-pregnancy craving- Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I had just sat down with a bowl and realized I wanted to remember some of these moments, so my mom agreed to take these pictures of me and Kevin in our natural habitat doing our normal things.

These photos are still, 5 years later, some of my favorite from my pregnancy. They capture exactly who we were during those days. I can feel the excitement and nervousness and joy we shared. I can feel the atmosphere of our tiny one bedroom apartment beside the canal. The love was tangible.

So why are lifestyle photos more important than posed? Why do I prefer to shoot in your home, documentary style rather than in a field or a garden? Is there really such a big difference? Wouldn’t you treasure photos where you feel your most gorgeous/ your family looks their absolute best more than candids where you might look disheveled? If your house isn’t perfectly decorated, wouldn’t it distract from the photos and only remind you of what you didn’t like?

The answer is yes, it’s more important. Here’s why:

Unless you live in said field or garden and are connecting every day with that location, the pictures from the session will only hold memories associated to the moment I posed you, backed away, pressed the button to release the shutter, then moved in to re-pose you. There’s nothing in your memory that ties you to that location, therefore the pictures you’ll have after we’re through, while beautiful, won’t invoke a deep emotional connection to that moment in time.

However! When you view photos of yourself in your home surrounded by the things you connect with daily, the smells that have become so familiar they’re unrecognizable and the feelings of HOME (where you feel the most at ease and yourself) flood to your memory. They’re almost tactile, those memories. They bring you back to that moment so forcefully that you could almost relive those few seconds in time.

Even if your home doesn’t look like your dream home, what I capture in photos isn’t your home, it’s your emotional connection to your spouse, your children, your unborn baby, your family. I’m not coming in to shoot for Southern Living, I’m coming in to encapsulate moments of time for your to relive in the years to come. Your connection is the important factor, not your decor.

That’s why Lifestyle photos are important to me. That’s why I choose to shoot documentary style. Those memories of the past can be an anchor in difficult times, and my hope is that through beautiful, real, lifestyle photos I can provide the gateway to those memories for you and your family.