Why You Still Need Family Photos With Older Kids (And Why a Documentary Session Might Be the Perfect Fit)
Don't stop getting family photos when your kids start growing up and life gets busy.
The Years You Forget to Document
When kids are little, life feels extremely fleeting. One minute you’re managing wake windows, pacifiers, and tummy time, and the next minute they’re crawling, getting into everything they shouldn’t be, and then running circles around the house before you can even blink.
It’s easy to remember to stop and take time to document each stage and milestone as they grow more and more into their own person. It seems like they become a whole new person every 3-4 months and you want to remember it all. But somewhere along the way, you wind up with a moody middle schooler and a rebellious high schooler testing boundaries and learning to navigate life's challenges. And it gets BUSY - schedules are jam packed, you’re juggling all the different schedules, practices, hobbies and friends, and feels like you’re all living separate lives under the same roof, and the thought of a family photo session doesn’t even cross your mind - until fall hits and you want to send out your annual holiday card but are struggling to find a nice photo of everyone all together. And… then you forget to send it out all together.
Before you know it, your kids are off to college, moving out of the house and into their new lives as adults, and all you have are photos from when they were little. But what about all the years with them that you watched them grow into their own person, making their own decisions, some great, some failed with lessons learned, all while you guided them along the way. What about all the years that it almost felt like you were friends more than anything? What about the years when your kid ran to you for advice on how to deal with new crushes, friend drama, or not quite accomplishing what they set out for? You helped mold them into the person they are today. Can you imagine having THAT stage of your life, your kids’ life, documented to look back on while they fly out of the nest and into one of their own?
These memories, when your kids are older, will also mean so much more to your kids, too. Those are the ones that THEY will remember more - when they’re little, they only remember for so long, as you get older, you remember what happened more recently, and the memories from childhood slowly fade, only remembering what you tell them about, or what they see in photos. But when they’re big and out of the house, they’ll remember crying on your shoulder when they got rejected by their big crush at the middle school dance. They’ll remember celebrating with you that big award they earned for working extra hard on something they were so passionate about and proud of during their senior year of high school. They’ll remember baking cookies with you on a Saturday afternoon. They’ll remember the way you held them accountable for their actions in a way that showed love and care and instilled a sense of responsibility that will carry them through their adult life experiences.
Please, don’t stop getting family photos when your kids start growing up and life gets busy.
But What Will You Actually Photograph?
You might be thinking “but what is she even going to photograph? We’re boring people. We don’t do much, will you just photograph us sitting on our phones?”
Yes, I’ll photograph you sitting on your phone, if that’s what you’re doing. It’s part of your life, it’s part of all of our lives. But we can ALSO have some activities planned to ground our time together, so it doesn’t feel so awkward. While you may feel like you often just sit at your house and watch tv or scroll your phone, I bet there’s a lot of other things you do as a family on a regular basis.
Do you cook meals together?
Do you do yard work together?
Do you play at the basketball hoop in your driveway?
Do you play video games together?
Do you have hobbies or crafts you do?
Do you like to sit and read out on the front porch?
Do you like to go for walks together around the block?
All those things that feel so simple, so ordinary, so uninteresting… are exactly the things you should be documenting for your family. They show your real life as it is. And I can promise you that from an outsiders perspective, it looks so much more beautiful than you could ever imagine, and more importantly, it will FEEL so much more like home, like you.
When you get a family portrait session, you look at the photos and think “wow we all look so great! We’re so well put together! We’re all smiling! We all look like a big happy family”
And you totally do and are! But when you look at photos from a documentary session, you will look at the gallery and think “wow, that is SO us. That looks like us, that feels like us, that feels like home.” and when you look back 5, 10, 15 years from now, you’ll feel a twinge of nostalgia for this phase of your life, as it was. Because 5, 10, 15 years from now, your life is going to look and feel different. And that’s not a bad thing, that’s just how life is. It’s constantly evolving and changing. And it’s so much more meaningful to carry the memories of each stage on with you for years to come.
What If My Teen Won't Go For It?
You may be thinking that there’s no way your older kids will want to be photographed, that they’ll be too embarrassed or resistant. I get where that thought is coming from… It can feel cringe for a teen when mom or dad is pointing a camera at you. But as a documentary family photographer in Northern Virginia, I can tell you that if someone else is doing it while you get to just BE with mom and dad? That’s a different experience entirely. The focus becomes the family, not the kid being made a spectacle. Kids still want experiences with their parents. And a documentary session is exactly how you can get them. That’s the shift that helps get teens on board — from feeling like the memories are about ME, to feeling like they’re about US.
What a Real Documentary Session Looks Like
When Grace and I first started talking about a documentary family photo session, she said that she hadn’t gotten photos with her family since the kids were little. Her daughter is finishing up middle school, and her son is a junior getting ready for his senior year of high school.
She was all in, and excited to get some updated/refreshed photos of her family. When she started talking to her husband about it, he said “what is she going to take pictures of us doing? Sitting around the house doing nothing?” She started to worry about them not having anything interesting enough going on to document. So we started planning. The day I was coming to photograph was also the same day they’d be going to a neighborhood easter egg hunt. She needed to bake cookies for the party, and decided to save that experience for the photo session. Something she was already planning on doing.
She also talked about how they are a very active family, and they love to go on walks and visit the basketball courts nearby. Just like that, the session was planned: baking cookies followed by a family walk to the basketball courts for some outside time, and her husband was on board… all he had to do was be himself and do the things they usually do as a family.
When I arrived to the session, I introduced myself to everyone, and was cautious around the kids. I wasn’t sure how comfortable they’d be with a camera in their space, so I stayed out of the way at first, trying not to impose. And I quickly realized that I didn’t need to. They completely ignored me, and I mean that in the best possible way.
They knew what I was there for and they were cool with it. They just… did their thing. With little kids, sometimes they’ll get distracted by the camera, stare right into the lens, want to come see what I'm doing. These older kids were just completely themselves. Chill. Unbothered. Exactly what I needed them to be.
Curious what a session like this would look like for your family? Learn more about my day in the life packages.
Grace and her daughter were ready to go with baking cookies. Mind you - these are her world-famous chocolate chip cookies, not just your regular cookie, but cookies with rolos on the inside. Ooey and gooey, and not something you’d ever get photographed in a traditional family photo session in a studio or at a field out in the middle of nowhere.
While the cookies baked, the daughter worked on a craft project with her mom, and the dad was having a heart to heart with his son. And in the middle of it all, the cousins showed up and joined in as if it were their home, too. And the plans shifted from a walk to the basketball courts to the youngest kids jumping on the couch, the boys messing around with each other, the uncle quietly escaping to the front porch to read a book in silence for a few minutes, before everyone found him outside and started playing like it’s elementary school recess again. Hula hoops, volleyballs, and lots of space to run around the front yard and enjoy the gorgeous weather.
That’s the beauty of a documentary session. We’ll make a loose plan to ground your time during our session so it doesn’t feel like you’re being watched and waiting to do something. And we can also easily pivot when the plans change; because that’s real life. How ordinary it is to change plans and pivot throughout your days. We document the things that come up naturally for your family, in all their ordinary glory.
That’s a documentary session, and that’s why this might be exactly what you need for your family with older children. If you’re a family in Northern Virginia ready to document this season of life, I’d love to be your documentary family photographer. Let's capture your family, exactly as you are.
