Your questions and worries about your Family Documentary Photoshoot

We’ll talk about…

What sort of things do you get up to as a family normally – to give us some ideas of what we can shoot to capture your story of now.

What your house is like – for example, is it open plan or smaller rooms, which direction do the rooms face and where in those rooms do the things you’ve described above happen? Anything goes here, but it’s helpful for me to know in advance if a space is tricky and may require extra thinking or kit!

Ideally I’d like free access to all spaces in your house but if some rooms or areas are out of bounds just let me know.

How you feel about me photographing through negative moments eg a tantrums or an argument or an injury – I like raw emotions to show in real images, and I also like to capture the reactions to a negative moment eg the hug after a fall, but I need to know your thoughts on this.

How you feel about nudity …just as far as photos are concerned 😉  I try hard to avoid taking photographs that have private parts showing (eg during bath time), and I delete them if it happens. I don’t count baby/child bums as private and I will photograph them if presented with the opportunity because they’re so damn cute 🙂 Though I don’t personally ever share them online because there are weirdos out there. If this doesn’t align with your views, I’d need to know where you stand!

Definitely not. This is all about capturing memories of your REAL life. I will show you the beauty within your home!

You don’t need to tidy up much. It’s important that your house looks like it normally does. I know for me there is a range in that statement, so probably don’t have it looking like its worst day.

But do have some stuff around that gives context to your life right now.

Documentary sessions need to be longer than portrait sessions, to allow things to happen organically. Timings can vary by what you want to capture and by season. In the summer months a full day will allow natural light as your children wake (if you have good sleepers!) and also at bedtime, which can be lovely if you want to capture a full day.

By contrast in the winter, as the days will be shorter, images might be darker in mood, or I may need to use flash. If you don’t want a full day, then of course we can capture part of your day, or even stage the activities… I am not a purist, and nobody is going to arrest us if we have a bath and bedtime stories at 2pm

It is a bit more intimate than a shorter portrait session, as I’ll be spending normal family time with you.

But I am very easy going and very non-judgemental. So feedback from clients is that I blend in and they almost forget that I’m there.

I’ll interact with your family but we won’t stand chatting, that doesn’t make for good photos. You can feed me if I’m there over a meal time, or I can bring a sandwich – up to you.

You should wear your normal clothes. Feel free to make them your favourite ones, but don’t get dressed up in something that looks unrealistic for wearing in your home environment.

I’m not a documentary purist, so if you want I can send you my guide for what type of things to wear on a lifestyle shoot, but normally in a documentary shoot, anything goes.

Definitely! If your normal activities involve the outdoors then we can definitely plan to include these. 

In the right conditions, it is very easy to create beautiful natural images outdoors. Outdoor shoots are fab if you have pets you’d like to involve, or just for larger families.

However they are very weather dependent, so on some days we might need to stay indoors or reschedule our timings to suit the weather!  On very bright sunny days, it’s hard to get flattering results in the middle of the day, whereas midday can be great on a cloudy or a foggy day. And rain and wind may mean the outdoor bit can’t happen.

So if you’re happy with the possibility of a last minute change of plans, then this is definitely ok for me.

Session fees for documentary shoots  vary according to shooting time. They take at least 3 hours but some clients choose to have me document the entire day!

After the shoot – and once you have viewed your photos – you will be able to choose a collection that suits your budget.

These collections start from £300 and all collections include a complimentary print credit – It’s so important to get those memories out of the digital world and have an actual tangible memory to display.