What Do You Wish You Had Documentary Family Photos Of?
I asked a few documentary family photographers from around the globe to answer some questions about the work they do. For this last question I wanted to get more personal – it is the season for all things feelsy, after all.
What do you wish you had documentary photos of?
LIA EDWARDS | MUNICH FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER
I wish I had more photos of me with my parents growing up. There are lots of us kids (5 of us), but not so many with my parents in. They worked so hard bringing us up and thinking of fun things to do with us. It would be nice to have more pictures with them in too.
I also wish I had hired a professional photographer to photograph the birth of my daughter or our time in hospital right after she was born. That would have been really special. I have one (very bad) photo of me breast-feeding my daughter for the first time (you can't even see me in it). Having survived breast cancer, this was a really big deal for me to be able to feed her, so with hindsight, I wish I had had that moment captured.
This summer, when my daughter was 3, we hired a professional photographer (Kelly of LifebyKellyK) to photograph a day in our lives - from the moment we woke up, until our daughter went to bed. In so many ways that one day represents what our life was like this past year. And even 6 months later, I can see so much has changed already.
So I guess I wish that we had maybe done that sooner. We'll definitely do it again every year!
NATASHA KELLY | MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER
Without hesitation, I can say the births of my children, the early days when I brought them home from the hospital and just a regular normal day when I had them all at home with me. The thing is, I have these photos (except for their births), but I wish I had ones with me in them. The older my children get, the more I realize how important it is that I have photos of them with me.
CELINA BAILEY | MONTREAL FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER
I think it would have been really fun to have some photos from when my husband and I first started dating. Some of my favorite photos are from a day where we bought two disposable cameras and each took photos of each during that day. We made two albums and it’s just so much fun look back at that day, how cute, in love and young we were. Another event would that of giving birth. Maybe even documenting the pregnancy, I have very few photos of that. And just a day in the life of being a mom. Being the photographer of my family, I am hardly ever in any photos. It would be nice to be in a few, even if I am more comfortable behind the camera. And if and when I become a grandmother, a day in the life with my grandkids; which reminds me that I should really do that with my mom.
BURCU CETIN | ANKARA, TURKEY FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER
1) Birth of my son
2) Breastfeeding moments
3) Our mornings & our bedtime cuddles/reading
Bonus: Photos of those intimate moments of us loving each other.
Love these moments more than anything.
KYM VITAR | LOS ANGELES FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER
1. My first day home from the hospital with each of the kids (obviously for different reasons, from the first time parent figuring it all out, to the 3rd child being introduced to her brothers for the first time)
2. When my entire family came to town for a week after the holidays- just one of those days with all the sisters and their offspring together for the first time in 3 years, and the chaos and love of 16 people all staying in my house. It was a mess and there was nothing monumental happening, but everywhere you looked, there were kids and playing and memories being made.
3. A day during baseball season. Any day. Starting with the boys getting ready in their uniforms at home and getting to the field for warmups, and the rest of us in the stands and cheering them on, to the end of the game, regardless of the outcome.
Or a rainy day when we all can be home and together. Those days are so few and far between, that I would love to have one of our lazy days captured. When the little one is “cooking” in her play kitchen, the middle one is building legos in the garage for hours, and the oldest is reading. All the while I am crafting, or cleaning or fluttering between each of them, and my hubs is doing whatever my hubs does- also fluttering between them, or getting them to practice their jujitsu or all of us playing a game together.
MINNA RIDDERSTOLPE | SWEDEN FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER
Since I shoot my own family a lot I actually don’t feel that I miss so much from our everyday life, the only thing missing in the photos are me…
I started to shoot my own life at a really early age. I borrowed my moms camera already at the age of ten and I took it to school and to summer camp and so on trough the years. I have so many photo albums and photos stucked in to boxes. Okey… I had to count them: 50 albums and three big boxes…)
But I wish I had photos from when my two kids were born and the first days at home with them. There are photos, but I wish they were taken by a professional.
And I wish there were some photos of me and my grandmother on my fathers side, there is not a single one. I was three years old when she past away.
My family used to stay in a summer house next to were my grandfather lived, and that time meant a lot to me as a kid, but there are very few photos from there, I wish there were more.
And of course I would love to have a day in the life-shoot of my own family.