I didn't think much of this photo when I took it, but three years later, this photo means so much to me. Andrew looks so different here. I remember him being in such a state of transition during this time. 5th grade was a big year and I can see the beginnings of the teenager he has become. It's one of my favorite - simple and honest, not clever or pretentious. Most importantly, it's timeless. It tells the story of him. Documentary family portraits have always been a passion of mine. As a mother of three boys, I have tried hard to continue photographing my children at various milestones. Every year the team at Love Life Images take a day out of our lives and take photos all day long - our own "Day in the Life."  I've been doing it for almost 8 years. I look back on those photos as an archive of our family's history. Twin diapers were changed in 2007, a new house in 2008, batman pajamas in 2009, a breakfast cereal fight in 2010, homework in 2011, a new dog in 2012. Preschool turned to elementary school and then into middle school, soon it will be high school. Boys grew taller, and taller and taller. Now I look up to Andrew. I can't barely recall the memories in my head. All the lovely details of this journey fade so quickly. Their sweet little faces have changed so much over the years. I have it all archived in images that tell the story of our family.

For the past 5 years, Love Life Images has focused on the weddings or "Love" part of story. We're ready to start documenting the "Life" part of Love Life Images with portrait sessions focused on telling the story of your family. We recognize the need to document life with visual variety, and even as we've documented our own families, it's always been a balance of posed portraiture and more storytelling images form our real lives.  As we had a greater understanding of how we can serve our clients, it was important that we offer that same variety in sessions, while still focused on the long term. One year you may choose to do a documentary session, but the next you may want something posed in the studio, with then a third year you might want just a quick session at the beach or during the fall foliage. Our new sessions offer all these options. We'll be explaining in detail over the next few blog posts how each style of photography is different but still important, and how you can now choose us to tell your whole life story.

Documentary and Styled - the two definitions for the styles of portraits we offer. We've always found it hard to do both during one session, and even though pieces of each can show up in each type, the focus and nature of the sessions are uniquely different. Documentary sessions are largely unposed, unobtrusive images of your regular lives. (see our blog post about Documentary Sessions HERE) Styled Sessions are posed, perfected and planned to execute a specific and defined portrait, whether in person or on location. (see our Styled Session blog post HERE)

We'll be sharing all the details in blog posts over the next few days- so stay with us while we introduce you to the new sessions, new products and lots of new exciting things to come at Love Life Images!

Here's a preview of some of our favorite documentary images: