Documentary Family Photography – Day in the life of the Un Family

A couple of months ago I spent half a day with a dear friend, her husband and her cheeky little daughter for some family documentary photography. I have been interested in delving into Day In The Life photography for a little while now and I offered to do some family photography as a birthday present for her little one. For those who don’t know, Day In the Life photography is a niche style (that is become more popular) of family photography. It’s photojournalism for your daily life. It’s capturing your family’s emotions and activities in their everyday environment. It’s a time capsule of that season of your life that you can look back upon in 20 years time.

We began our session one Saturday morning around 7am as the family was getting ready for the day. Feeding the little one. Getting ready for Parkrun. Packing the baby bag. It was such a fun photography period as there was so much bustle and emotion in that time. My friend’s husband ran with their daughter to Parkrun and in the meantime we had an hour or so of chatting and catching up while she tidied and organised herself before meeting her husband and daughter at Parkrun.

We were fortunate to have great weather to head to a local Farmers Market. The Farmers Market is one of their regular Saturday morning outings and was the perfect opportunity to capture the family enjoying the market together, having a simple picnic and enjoying the live music.

After the market, it was play time for the little one while the grown ups got ready for lunch. It was so fun capturing the little one’s raw emotions and seeing how she interacts with her parents.

After 6 hours of hanging out and photographing my friend and her family, it was time for me to wrap up the session. I was pleased to see a story unfold during my culling/editing process and was eager to share them with my friends. As part of this session, I’ll also be making an eBook/Album and a photofilm/slideshow for my friend.

Photographic Reflections

Photographically speaking, Day In The Life photography was some I was gravitated to when I first heard about it many year ago. However “people photography” was something I had a sense of fear around. In the last couple of years, I’ve build up my confidence in interacting with strangers through being a community organiser and volunteering for a variety of events as a photographer. This opened up the idea of experimenting with Day In The Life photography as one of the genres to pursue.

I shot this session using my Fujifilm X-T10, the 23mm f2 and 35mm f1.4. The 2 prime lenses were great for the Day In the Life session. I’ve had the X-T10 since 2015 when it was first released. It was my first foray into the mirrorless world and I haven’t looked back since. I found the X-T10 a little bit slow and clunky since I started using it for event and documentary photography when there is quite a bit of movement. The slow autofocus on the 35mm f1.4 was a bit of a draw back during my shoot, but I still really enjoy the images which came out of it. Having inbuilt IBIS would be tremendously helpful since I was shooting partly indoors and only utilising natural light to avoid getting in the way of their daily activities. An inbuilt IBIS would also help if I want to learn to do some video work to make short photofilms as part the session. A new camera body will also allow me to shoot at higher ISOs and faster shutter speeds without a lost of quality.

The Fujifilm X-T10 has served me well over the last 5 years but I think I’ll be looking to upgrade to either the latest X-T30/40 or X-T4 in 2020. The X-T10 will still remain as my secondary camera if it’s still kicking. As I love shooting with prime lenses, having 2 camera bodies will also help with the flow of my shoot as I can have 2 different focal lengths on each camera body.

Thanks for stopping by today and happy shooting.

J.