Imagine being able to give your future self a time machine. A real life way to look back on the years. Not only to see them, but to really feel them. To relive the hugs, the meals, the rhythms of the seasons you’ve moved through. I’ve got great news. You absolutely can do that. Not in the literal sense of a machine that transports your body back in time. Rather, in the sense that documentary style family photography will carry your mind and heart back to years past.

Here are 5 things that future you will thank present you for when you invest in a day in the life session.

Documentary Style Family Photography Lets You Relive Raw Joy

Documentary style family photography captures real life emotions in a raw and unfiltered way. There is no need to “smile pretty”. It’s just you. Your family being themselves. Honest and real.

In the midst of the realness, true daily joy infuses each moment. How many times do we hear about “the simple pleasures”? A day in the life session highlights these simple pleasures and the intense joy they produce.

Years from now, when you look back on these pictures, you’ll smile. The raw joy of real life jumps off the page and floods your heart, mind, and soul. What a gift to give yourself!

Capture Fleeting Childhood

It can’t just be me who looks at their children and thinks “when did you get so big!?”, right?!

All it takes is a blink, and they’ve changed. Documentary style family photography arrests the thief of time. These artful images preserve chubby cheeks and tiny toes, small human whirlwinds, budding maturity and so much more.

In our modern world, childhood is being stolen away more and more. Gone are the days of staring up at the clouds and wasting a summer day lost in daydreams. This sobering reality makes it all the more imperative that we celebrate childhood and do all we can to protect and nurture it. Photographs that show the beauty and innocence of being a kid are a mighty tool in our belt.

Documentary style family pictures also help counteract the modern world’s carefully curated view of life. It gives children a window into the beauty of authenticity. Our lives don’t have to be lived “Pinterest-perfect” or come together to form a perfect 9 square grid. Be real. Be you. Show the mess. Play. Live, really live!

Documentary style pictures preserve family dynamics as well. It’s not just about what you looked like, it’s how your family felt in that specific season. These images are priceless treasures for a family. Which leads me to my next point.

Preserve Your Generational Legacy

I recently discovered a trove of photographs in my parents’ house from my early childhood. Complete with bad early 90’s-still-hanging-onto-the-80’s hair. My mullet was shocking.

Despite the wretched mullet, these pictures spoke to a deep place in my heart. This was where I came from. The tatty first apartment my parents lived in, my grandparents’ farm, my Winnie the Pooh birthday cake from my second birthday. In all of these pictures, I connected with my family and myself.

Documentary style family photography is an elevated form of these simple snapshots of life. All these emotions are heightened because the image is artistic and beautiful, and the subject is deeply connected to your innermost being.

When you invest in the creation of these pictures, you are giving yourself the gift of grounding. The gift of remembering and connection.

Grounding & Hope During Hard Times

Life is hard. There are no exceptions. Everyone will have difficulties and worries to wade through. Imagine having pictures there to offer you a warm embrace in those moments.

I’ve heard from people before that their pictures have brought comfort when a loved one passes away. A beautiful image that becomes a priceless lifeline in grief.

Other pictures bring hope as you look at how much things have changed. Old homes that led the way to new ones, children who conquered fears once and can do it again, smiles that seem distant now but will be shared again soon.

Day in the life sessions create powerful images of your entire life, giving you a vital lift when things get tough.

Documentary Style Family Photography Captures a Wealth of True Smiles

No saying “cheese!” no forced fake smiles. Documentary style family photography captures only the genuine article.

Do you really want to dress your family up in carefully coordinated outfits, stressing that someone will ruin something before the pictures, and then spend your session telling Junior to stop squirming and smile? The inevitable result is forced smiles and misery.

Day in the life sessions let you laugh together. Big genuine belly-laughs. The kind of laughing that leaves you breathless and teary. AKA the best kind.

These pictures don’t just show how you laughed, they’ll bring back the memories of how their laugh sounded when they were little. A giggle versus raucous laughter. When the house is empty, looking at these pictures will fill it with joyous sound again.

What’s stopping you?

Think about 20 years from now. What joy, what comfort, what riches might you have when you look through pictures from your day in the life documentary family pictures?

We all know that you once time passes, it’s gone. There’s no going back. But you can freeze time. Grab a slice of what it was. Photography is our greatest ally against time.

If you’re ready to give a gigantic gift to future you (now you will also love it), click here to learn more about documentary style family photography.

Or, better yet, click here to book a discovery call on my calendar. I’d love to talk with you about how this incredible gift can be given to your family for generations to come!