In Defense of Your Home – Kitsap Lifestyle Photographer

Whenever someone contacts me regarding a session, invariably I will offer an in home session.  Very frequently the suggestion is met with a barrage of concerns usually surrounding the appearance of their home; it’s size, tidyness, interior decor (or lack thereof).  I’d like to take a moment and offer a shifted perspective in this post.

I could spend some time talking about the benefits of shooting in your home; you don’t have to pack up and go anywhere, a fresh change of clothes is just one room away, Dad can periodically slip off to check the score of the game, kids are less likely to be distracted or over stimulated in a familiar place, etc.

I could also reassure you by explaining any photographer worth their salt will know how to read, and best use, the light in your home.  I could discuss the tactics that can be used to put the “best face” on your home.

But I’m not going to do that.

I want to spend a moment explaining why I love to shoot in sessions in home.

For me, photographs have never really been about creating pretty images of happy families to show off on a living room wall.  For me, photography has always been about building a bridge to the past and creating a visual supplement to a family’s oral history.  You see, like us, our houses grow and change.  They get old.  They get remodeled. And, unlike us, they are bought and sold.  So there will inevitably be a time when you say ‘goodbye’ to one home and ‘hello’ to a new one.  But in the interim, we live in our homes.  They impact us, and we impact them.

Since getting married almost 10 years ago my husband and I have had 8 different addresses.  8 different places where we have dreamed, planned, laughed, fought, and grew.  In quiet moments I still mentally take a tour of each of those residencies because I do not want to forget them, or who we were when we lived there.

There is the first apartment we leased together in Charleston that (at the time) seemed so big and bright and clean, but overlooked the dumpster and was in a part of town that was, categorically, not us.  Or, by contrast, the shoebox sized, outdated apartment in West Seattle where we really came in our own as adults.  (To this day, if it were in any way possible, I would move back into that place in a heartbeat.)  There’s also the first property we purchased, a condo in Charleston (again) with it’s gorgeous huge windows, vaulted ceiling and loft space which ended up making the perfect make-shift nursery when our son was born.

Now, we are in the first single family home we have owned and I couldn’t love it any more if I tried, despite it’s popcorn ceilings and it’s bizarre sponge painted counters in the kitchen and baths.  God willing, someday soon those ceilings won’t be popcorned and those countertops won’t be sponge painted, but I’m still going to want to remember those things in detail the same way you would want to remember a child’s toothless grin.  Imperfect but beautiful, a mark of growth and change, the progression of life.

I’ve well documented our lives in only a couple of the places we’ve lived, not all of them.  That makes me sad.   But, I am so terribly grateful I do have some really great images that show our lives in a couple of these places.  I am so happy I will be able to tell my son about the day he finally decided to walk (after about a month of just one step here and one step there). Out of the blue, he walked across the entire width of the ranch style house we were renting at the time.  I’ll be able to show him a pictures of himself in that space.  Furniture (like the beloved, giant, khaki green couch we owned and essentially became a symbol of our 20’s) and meaningful knick-knacks that won’t survive the test of time or additional moves, will live on.  The four walls that surround us and the possessions contained within deserve to be documented as part of our lives.

In 30 years, when one generation turns over to the next, will you still love the beautiful custom portraiture you had taken at a studio or a in a random field?  Of course, you will.  But they won’t have the same power to spark a conversation or initiate the passing down of family history the way in home images do.

Therefore, the next time you are planning family portraits and you look around your home and think “Oh, if only we didn’t have all this random IKEA furniture” or “I just have too much stuff piled everywhere” or “Ugh, I just hate that lamp/couch/bookshelf/wall hanging/whatever!” remember, your home is beautiful because of what happens in it.  Today’s “mess” is full of memories your kids will want to keep, and stories you will want to tell your grandchildren.