What is lifestyle photography? Why am I a lifestyle photographer?
What is lifestyle photography?
According to Wikipedia “Lifestyle Photography is a kind of photography that many aims to capture portrait/people in situations, real-life events or milestones in an artistic manner and the art of everyday. The primary goal is to tell stories about people’s lives or to inspire people in different times. Lifestyle photography is “posed” in a way that the photographer gives some direction and then documents the natural response after. Lifestyle photography is about telling a story through the lens. It’s about the legacy that is left behind because of it.”
There are different schools of thought when it comes to the “real” definition of lifestyle photography. One school of thought feels that true lifestyle photography is a documentary approach to capturing real life events without any intervention from the photographer. Any guided posing or facilitation from the photographer moves you away from true lifestyle photography. Other schools of thought would say that lifestyle photography falls somewhere between documentary photography and portrait photography. Another way of thinking about lifestyle photography is how it makes you feel. When you see a lifestyle image, it should evoke an emotional response. The viewer should be able to feel the emotions that were being felt at the time the image was taken or the viewer should be able to relate to what they are seeing and be transported to a similar moment of time in their life. Whichever school of thought one follows, the one principle that all schools of thought agree on is that the emotions that are captured should be authentic, whether they require no intervention or a little facilitation.
What does lifestyle photography mean to me?
When it comes to lifestyle photography, I fall in the school of thought that feels that it lies somewhere between a documentary approach and traditional portrait photography. For me, lifestyle photography is a way to capture precious moments in a natural and authentic way. Guided posing or facilitation enables an authentic response in a given situation. I may ask a mother holding a newborn to stand by the window, because that’s where the light makes her look best, but the emotion of a mother looking into her baby’s eyes and that baby looking back into her mother’s eyes is 100% real. I may ask a mother to dance in the living room with her son to facilitate something to happen, but the giggles and the smiles that follow are 100% real. When viewers look at those images, they can imagine themselves in the same situation with their own children. If both the people I photograph and the people viewing the photograph can experience similar emotions when they view the image, that is what lifestyle photography means to me.
Why am I lifestyle photographer?
As a mom, I find myself behind the camera more often than in front of the camera. It takes a little extra effort to end up in pictures with my family. During the first year of my son’s life, I took over a thousand pictures of him (yes, over a thousand!). I wanted to capture every little precious moment before he changed, which sometimes happened overnight. Now looking back at all those pictures, I am so glad I have those precious moments frozen in time. My family and I will be able to re-live those moments for years to come. I’m also really glad I made an effort to get in front of the camera because I can see myself as part of the memories. Now I want to help other families capture their precious moments in time, especially the designated family photographer. I want to help families capture the emotions that they are feeling at that moment. I want to help families capture all the little details of the family dynamic as well as all the little details of what they look like at the moment. I want to help families capture the memories that in the future will make them laugh, cry or both. I want to help families take all the images that I have (or wished I had) that they will cherish forever.