Document Meaningful Moments While Staying Present in Life
When first starting to document my life with little children, I found myself forever chasing after the moments and hoping to catch the moment. However, more often than not, I would see a moment and by the time I got my camera out and settings adjusted, my kids had moved on to other things already. Then I realized that if I am chasing after the moments, I will very unlikely be able to have the brain power to even think about lighting or composition to make the image a strong photo. What is worse, because I am always afraid of missing the moments for my photos, I am constantly behind the camera and missing the precious time I should be spending with my children, being present. It’s a vicious cycle.
There is actually a way out!!
The first thing is to know what moments are worth documenting. While I know as a mom I can never get enough of my baby’s mischievous grin, I don’t think I need 100 images, let alone 1000, of that same grin to remind me how cute he is. One really good one is enough! Plus, I can't even imagine how overwhelming it would be for my baby to look at thousands of photos of just him with a big grin when he grows up and inherits all my photos.
What moments are worth documenting?
This is a question only YOU can answer for yourself. It will be different for each and every one of us and that is the beauty of documentary photography--it is really personal.
Here are a few potential ideas:
Repeating moments you want to remember
Tender moments
Kids do funny stuff
Daily routine
Sibling relationships
Family traditions
Hardships
Unusual occasions:
Milestones
Vacations
Fun activities
Moments that you don't normally see
Behind the back, when parents are not watching
Rare moment of me/quiet time for mom
Now you know what moments you are looking for, you can start to take mental, or actual, notes when these moments usually happen. I know, for example, right before nap time, that’s when my youngest tends to do a lot of mischievous things hoping to get out of nap. So I will make sure that my camera is ready so whenever that moment shows up, I’m ready to catch it.
Now you can anticipate the moment much better. You will be able to predict when the next document-worthy moment is going to happen and you will have your camera ready. And for all the other times when things are just not happening much or everyone is just needy, you can totally feel confident to put your camera away and just be with the kids and be present. Because let's be honest, when we are just in scrambling mode, our images made are less likely to be strong images. It's 100% better to have time well spent with our family and just keep the memories in mind than sacrificing family time to only get images that come out as meh.
While you don’t have a camera glued to your face and chasing after moments, it doesn't mean that you are not working hard for your photography. You will start to actually pay attention to how the light is in your surroundings and what might be good visual elements to include in your images or what composition might be interesting. Plus, when you do spend time living your life, you will be able to answer that first question I proposed much better--what is the most important moment for me to remember? Then your image as a whole will be much stronger.
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Here is another example of how I put this whole process into practice:
I am drawn to sibling relationships and funny things kids do. My youngest is a climber and he goes up to the dining table ALL THE TIME when I am not watching. → Cue-- moment I want to catch: my youngest on top of the dining table. If his older siblings are around that would be great. I know when I am working or when I am in the living room, my baby usually sneaks in and gets up on the table. I take mental note of this so I will have my camera by my desk if I am working.
Looking at my kitchen area, which is small, I know that I can only shoot in two directions to avoid clutter in the background and to have enough space for me to stand. With how the window is positioned in relation to the dining table, I would either frame my kids in the window frame or I would need to avoid including the window in the frame all together. This way, I know how I need to meter and use the light. Of course, with documentary approach, you don’t really have much control over the light but you could still use the light the best way you can.
Now composition, either I want to do a pull back to include more environment to show how small my baby is and how high he had climbed up; or I want to do a close up to see what exactly he got into; or the reaction of his siblings when they saw what the baby is doing; or just exaggerate the height of my baby now on the table(shooting upward); or shoot through the door frame with a feeling of peeking indicating that I was not watching him in the same room. Etc etc.
So by now I pretty much have the photo planned out and all I need to do is to have my camera ready and whenever I see my kid running towards the dining table, I can get ready to shoot and hope that he ends up in a good spot. And of course, I shoot through the moment and I do micro adjustments for the actual composition.
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Now, do I miss moments? All the time!!!! If you somehow missed the moment, first remember that people repeat their behaviors, especially kids. Most likely, you will see this moment appear again. Kids usually won’t stop doing something unless they got hurt or got reprimanded. Just remember when and where that moment happened for the first time and take a mental note. Now you can go back to the “wait for the moment to happen” phase!
If you really missed the perfect shot for an once in a lifetime shot, still keep the imperfect one. The image being imperfect itself tells a story too. I used to get so down on myself because I missed some really important shots. Then remember that you have other media to record this moment. Make sure to write down or record a voice memo as the caption for the less perfect image and that would still become extremely valuable in the long run! This way you will be able to make peace with yourself and move on faster to make the next better image instead of hanging onto this idea of having to recreate that memory.
Hopefully this can help you take better documentary photos with important moments caught while being a little more present in life ❤️
