How I Document Our Family Vacations as a Professional Photographer
Life is for livin’.
What I share on this blog might surprise you. Or hey, if you’ve followed along for a while, maybe it won’t surprise you because I’ve shared some of my heart on the tension of documenting vs. living in the moment over the past several years. How I document our family vacations is a reflection of that & I’ve developed a pretty intentional rhythm around how I photograph our sweet family time together so that I can live in the present moment with my family instead of only experiencing it through a lens.
My phone is my primary camera.
Yep, this professional photographer mainly uses her iPhone as her camera on family vacays.
In the early years of starting my business, I would take my camera with me every where we went. I was obsessed with it and loved learning how to shoot all kinds of subjects in all kinds of light. Don’t get me wrong, I still do. But as my hands grew full with children & all the little things that come along with them on family vacations, I found that I enjoyed myself more when I traded my large, expensive, heavy camera for a small, more easily replaceable, lightweight phone I could stick in my pocket or throw into a bag.
Plus, I think there’s something valuable about using vacation as a time to take a break from my camera since well, it is my livelihood, and isn’t a vacation supposed to be a break from our jobs? Even if you LOVE your work like I do. 🙃
I pack my camera so that I’ll have the option to bring it out if I want to, but I typically only use it once each trip to get some intentional family photos with my tripod or to photograph a specific part of the vacation.
Document in bursts.
What I mean by bursts is that I take my phone out at intentional, specific times and document what’s going on around me. But then, I put. my. phone. away. GASP!
If I’m on vacation with my kids, I don’t just want to photograph their experience unfolding, I also want to experience it WITH them, hands on. I want to swim in the ocean, look for starfish, play games, make a collection of sea shells!
If I’m honest, the perfectionist side of me is a bit bothered by this. Like, if I am going to document a trip - I want to document it THOROUGHLY. But I have to continuously tell myself to let that $h!t go. Yes, I will miss photographing some really sweet, beautiful memories I’m sure - but it’s not worth having a phone in my hand the whole time when I could otherwise have their hand in mine.
Capitalize on candids.
I will do a lot of crazy thangs to get happy smiles out of kids & I might even say it’s one of my better assets as a photographer (ha). BUT, one of the goals of photographing our family vacations is to bottle up the raw joy of those moments. And sometimes the best way to do that is to simply be a fly on the wall and capture it in real time as it unfolds.
Edit photos in batches.
I typically edit my photos in batches at the end of each day when the kids are in bed. It’s a fun way to debrief from the day and reflect on all we did together. Sometimes, I don’t get a chance to do this until the end of the trip but I think my preferred editing rhythm would be daily batching.
I love editing the images on my phone with the free Lightroom Photo & Video Editor app. I apply my editing presets (you can get them here!) to the whole batch of photos and then tweak each set of images to get them just right. With the presets, it doesn’t take me long at all and I really enjoy the process!
A few other helpful tips:
Airplane Mode: If you intend to use your phone as your primary camera, put your phone on airplane mode to minimize notifications & distractions. This allows your phone to simply be a camera instead of a tiny computer, too. 🙃
Proof of Mom: Ask someone to take a picture of you! Mamas, I’m lookin at you. You’re going to get home with a million pictures of your babies and/or husband looking adorbs and having a great time. But let’s get some shots with you in them too, please? Trust me, you AND your family will be so thankful for this.
Share Later: Document now, share later. Don’t miss out on what’s still happening right in front of you because you’re sharing what happened a few minutes ago.
Happy documenting!
Photography for me is ART. Even when it’s just taking pictures of my own family, I can’t separate it from that. It’s how I see the world. I sincerely enjoy the documenting, curating, editing, compiling, and sharing. It’s a joy! But that’s exactly why I’ve started implementing some of the things I’ve shared above, not to stifle my creativity & expression, but just as a boundary to make sure I’m getting in on the action and not just staying behind the camera as it happens in front o f me.
I hope you’ll feel the freedom & joy to do the same! xo, Suzy