Family Lifestyle Session- Osseo, Michigan

Family: Where life begins and love never ends. – Unknown

My goal for 2022 is to photograph all my family sessions in the Lifestyle photography genre.

WHY, you may ask?

The main reason is that my heart does not thrive on family portraiture. Ten years ago when I first opened my photography business it was always my goal to photograph in an emotive fashion. I didn't want to just pose people and have everyone smile into the camera. What really lights me up in photography is if I can tell a story or capture emotions for my clients. Basic family portrait work just won't capture that for me.

Over the years, I fell into family portraiture because I needed to pay my bills. And honestly taking family photos that way has helped strengthen my ability to pose people more quickly and efficiently, BUT it is not for me. I want to create photographs that light me up and make my clients shed a few tears. And to do that I need to tell a story, my clients story.

Lifestyle photography is like a planned candid, "a plandid", as photography marketer Amanda Nolan says. The Plan: It bases the photography session off of a certain event, location, or emotion. The Candid: there is minimal posing involved and a whole lot of hugging, looking at one another, playing, walking, twirling... anything that will showcase the connection between family members.

Take a look at this session I did last summer. I did take a few portraits of their son for his 1st birthday, but check out the photos that the parents are in. What do you see? What do you feel? What do these photos portray to you?

These are the questions I try to answer with each lifestyle session. I want my viewers to be pulled in by the connection they see. I want their heart strings to be yanked a tiny bit, because for me that is what a great photograph should do.