Finding things in your everyday life to photograph

We all love looking back at pictures that were made of us from our parents and we love looking at our grandparents when they where kids.

In today’s world, we forget to photograph the little things. Instead, we capture the big milestones like the newborn stage, birthdays, senior year, etc.

We forget about all the things that we do daily that we can photograph.

Sometimes I find myself searching for things to photograph in my children’s daily life. I mistakenly think we’re not doing anything special. But we are.

What everyday moments I like to photograph:

There are tons of little things that make our kids who they are. For example, how my daughter moves her hair out of her face while she’s washing dishes… how my son loves to cook… how my littlest baby cuddles and cries. All these things make my kids who they are.

I want these little moments photographed but forget to at times. I encourage you to slow down, look at your kids and see what in them you just love and photograph it.

You may have something you do daily with your kids like cooking, reading a book, bath time. Get out your camera and open up a curtain and photograph your kids in their natural element doing these things.

My kids and I love planting flowers and cooking. So, I take detailed pictures of their hands in the dirt and faces as their heads tilt back laughing.

Don’t forget to photograph the experience. Photograph emotions in the moment like laughs, cries, falls, kisses, etc. My husband jokes and says, ” We cann’t do anything without getting out an $ 8,000 camera set up can we?” I laugh and say, ” But my babies know I love them and will cherish these pictures for the rest of their lives.”

How I photograph the everyday moments:

I always keep my camera around close by for moments I don’t want to miss.

On this particular day, we woke up and my kids got straight to playing. I saw them being sweet and dragging out all their toys so I opened the curtains and took some pictures of them just playing.

Then I took my youngest to the kitchen table and there was the most perfect window light coming in so I took a picture of him playing with his favorite toy. It’s simple but it means a lot to me.

There are a few things I keep in mind when I photograph lifestyle.

1. Get on the child’s level.
2. Back up and look at the whole room and then do some close up shots.
3. Pay attention to details like hands, eyes, and things laying around.
4. Change positions, move around and look at a scene from different angles.

With lifestyle photography, I normally only shoot natural light but I do find myself using my flash on occasion if there’s just no natural light. I try and photograph lifestyle in the early morning hours because the sun is really bright and comes through the windows nicely.

When I do use a flash, I have my Gary Fong lightsphere and point it to a wall to the side so it bounces and comes back to my subject on the side of them. I tend to use a large aperture, around f/1.4 or f/1.8 if I just have one subject, because I like to have a creamy background.

Also, I typically shoot my lifestyle sessions with my Sigma 35mm Art lens. And since I love to have shadows in my images, I underexpose my photos.

Anything we do we can find something in that moment that we’ll want to remember.

Photograph your kids or clients doing things they love. Remember, these images are going to tell a story of what your family or client loves most.

Never be afraid to grab your camera and photograph something even if it’s not the ideal situation. I took my camera out many times to photograph my husband’s PawPaw planting in the garden with my kids. He passed away unexpectedly and had I not just went with my gut and grabbed my camera we wouldn’t have that beautiful picture of him before he passed at age 84.

Life is too short. Photograph everything. You can always find something in your day that is worthy of being captured forever.