Family photography, documentary photography, and artistic storytelling portraits are all valid — but they shape your memories in different ways. This is a reflection on perspective, romanticizing everyday life, and choosing how you want your family’s story to be seen.


One of my favorite books in our children’s collection is The Stock Horse vs. The Stable Cat.

It’s one of those books that feels simple at first, but stays with you long after you close it.

There’s a line in it that says:

“It is not what happens to you, but how you think about what happens to you.”

And that idea has been sitting with me lately in my work as a family photographer in Pennsylvania.

Not because life isn’t real or hard or messy — but because perspective shapes experience.


Documentary Photography vs. Creating Art in Family Photography

There are many different styles of family photography, and none of them are wrong.

One of those styles is documentary photography.


Documentary photography is honest and unposed. It tells the truth of a moment exactly as it happens:

  • real expressions
  • real movement
  • real chaos
  • real life as it unfolds

There is something deeply valuable about that kind of storytelling. It preserves memory exactly as it was.

Documentary photography says:

this is what life looked like.

And that matters.


But there is another approach to family portrait photography that I am increasingly drawn to.

It is more interpretive. More emotional. More artistic.

It does not ignore reality — it leans into meaning.

It asks:

what did this moment feel like?

This is where artistic family photography begins.

It pays attention to:

  • light falling across your child’s hair
  • the connection in a quiet glance
  • the feeling of a season, not just the facts of it
  • the beauty inside ordinary moments

Art says:

this deserves to be seen beautifully.

Neither documentary photography nor artistic photography is better.

They are simply different ways of seeing.


Romanticizing Everyday Life Through Photography

What I find myself wanting more and more is not perfection.

It is perspective.

I don’t want to stage a life that doesn’t exist.

I want to help families see the beauty in the life they are already living.

Because most of us don’t remember our children in exact detail years from now.

We remember:

  • the feeling of summer evenings
  • sticky fingers and bare feet
  • sleepy toddlers on our shoulders
  • messy kitchens filled with noise and life
  • the way it felt to be home together

This is where I believe romantic lifestyle photography lives.

Not in pretending life is perfect.

But in choosing to see it as meaningful.


“Here is my family, make us art”

That phrase has been sitting with me:

“Here is my family, make us art.”

Not:

  • make us perfect
  • make us look effortless
  • make us behave
  • make us something we are not

Just:

here we are — see us well.

That is what I want my work to feel like.

Not forced.

Not polished beyond recognition.

But intentional.

Because family photography as art is not about changing your life.

It is about helping you see it differently.


Choosing How You See Your Family’s Story

Maybe this is what the stock horse and stable cat reminded me of.

Not that one way of seeing life is right and the other is wrong.

But that perspective shapes everything.

The same moment can feel like:

  • chaos or childhood
  • stress or connection
  • exhaustion or meaning
  • ordinary or art

And photography lives right in that space.

Between what is happening… and how it is remembered.


Final Thought

Maybe art is not about changing your life.

Maybe it is about noticing it.

And maybe romanticizing your life through photography is just another way of saying:

I choose to see this as beautiful while I am still living it.