Documentary Photography Isn't A Style – It's An Approach
I've used the term "documentary approach" before to describe the style of photography I do with families and newborns. The importance of this distinction didn't quite sink in before Minna Ridderstolpe, a fellow family photographer from Sweden, sent me a perfectly innocent message the other day.
"During the past month I've realized that documentary family photography isn't a style, it's an approach. It is an approach to photography and it is also an approach to the families I meet. It felt like a key insight to me! What do you think?" - Minna
Well, suddenly everything just fell into place. I asked Minna if she was ok with me writing about this, and if there was anything else she wanted to add.So Minna explained further – she had read a discussion thread where someone mentioned photographing weddings in a "documentary style" which got her thinking about how the word "style" really refers to appearances and how something looks. Can someone really have a documentary style? What does documentary style look like, black and white? Or are bold and bright colors ok? Of course they are, because documentary photography is an approach towards the stories we want to tell. Documentary photographers want to tell the story as truthfully as possible, with minimal impact and without posing.Yes –I felt giddy! How could I not see this before?Even though I've typed out "documentary approach" plenty of times, the words never really hit me like this. Suddenly there's a whole new way to explain what documentary photography is, why it matters, why it feels so darn good for the families that do it, and why those pictures make every.single.person in the family feel important.
Documentary newborn and family photography really is so much more than a style of photography – it's a way of thinking, living, feeling. It's an approach to life, a mindset that real is better than anything we could try to imitate or orchestrate. Parents want to remember each other as well as their kids exactly as they were. Kids will want to see what their parents were like. We simply want to approach a family's life with curiosity, empathy, and respect.
Not to say that documentary photography is objective – we all have our different reasons for taking this approach with our photography. This leads everyone to see and capture different things. For example, because I didn't feel very connected to others growing up, I make sure to capture connections and gentle touches between family members it's like therapy to me. And these are real touches – I don't ask my families to do these for the camera.
Documentary photography is basically our way of saying your real life is enough, interesting, funny, amazing, exhausting, exhilarating, sprinkled with magic and fairy dust – and we want to mirror that back to you in your pictures.