What is a Documentary Session?

While there is absolutely a place in photography for posing and prompts and direction, I’m also creating space for a session that speaks to those of us who are moved and inspired by true authenticity, and Documentary Sessions prioritize and nurture exactly that. I aim for all my photos to look & feel very natural, but these niche sessions are all about capturing real, candid moments that are truly yours, and only yours.

How does a Documentary Session differ from your other sessions?

With my other sessions, I give you prompts, such as “walk hand in hand while you look at one another and giggle” and I’ll choose the most authentic looking moment within the prompt that I directed. I will also pose you, sometimes down to a perfectly-laid piece of hair and your exact hand placement. Again, always aiming for the pose to look and feel as natural as possible.

With a Documentary Session, I won’t position you into the best lighting, I’ll position myself in the most ideal way, photograph whatever is unfolding, all while allowing the moment to be yours. I won’t ask you to repeat something that happened naturally, I won’t direct you or move you or curate the moment in any way. I just want to photograph you, as you actually exist, with the people you love most.

Do we need to prepare for a Documentary Session in any way?

If you’d like to be photographed in your home, feel free to still tidy up and clean to your heart’s content! If you’d like to do a session at a beach or have me tag along while you go apple picking together, you can absolutely still curate a cute wardrobe for your family.

After booking, we will work together to form a short list of activities that are authentic to your family or relationship. For example, if we are headed to the beach, you could bring a snack picnic and blanket for the kids, skip rocks together, and play in the water. If I’m coming to your home, maybe you will bake cookies with the kids, rough house in the living room, play your favorite board game, or go on a family walk with the dog. Anything that is true to your family!

We will then simply allow the session to unfold.

If I’m speaking your language and you want to have your family or relationship documented this way, please fill out my contact form here!