For a while now I’ve been wanting to start photographing lifestyle family sessions – showing families in their own homes and doing the things they normally do together. My sister Rachel asked if I’d do family photos for them and so I decided to pitch the idea of doing a lifestyle session. All the following text is from Rachel:
When Danae asked us if we would like to try a lifestyle session with her, Keith and I were initially hesitant. We wanted formal, posed shots so that we could be sure to get the frameable family photos that we could give grandparents for gifts. Our home is lived-in, not decorated for a magazine style shoot, and I worried how it would appear under the unforgiving eye of the camera.
Keith took even more convincing. He thought that the photos of set-up scenes like us snuggled up reading books on the bed to our daughter, or flipping pancakes on the griddle might end up looking completely fake. To our surprise though, Danae made us feel completely at ease, and the moments that she captured reveal genuine interactions that make this photo shoot our absolute favorite we’ve ever done.
Danae has a gift of stepping out of the scene so you forget she’s clicking the shutter as you make breakfast, yet she is simultaneously angling for the best shot by scaling a kitchen stool. She reminds you to move your phone from your pocket or helps you adjust your hair so you don’t regret how a picture looks later. Most of the photos happened organically, while we did our normal Saturday family routine. Where my counters look cluttered, I barely notice, because of the priceless scene going on the in foreground of the photo as my husband throws my daughter in the air like he does a dozen times a day. We look at all these photos every day and can scarcely choose a favorite.
Our photo shoot captured fleeting moment of our everyday lives that we know we will want to remember forever – the days our daughter was tiny and fit in my arms when I nursed her and we made breakfast as a family on Saturday morning and then snuggled on the bed to read her favorite board books. There’s even something about seeing our own familiar, beloved belongings in a photo that poignantly tells the story of our lives. Unsurprisingly, the emotions evoked by these pictures are much more real than the (albeit lovely) formal family pictures in a park, and to tell the truth, it was much more fun, especially with an active baby!
