Vacation memories are made for documentary photography

I recently listened to an amazing podcast that essentially advertised documentary family photography without advertising documentary family photography.

During the episode of We Can Do Hard Things called “Why Good Photos Make us Feel Bad”, Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle talk start off by talking about the experience of getting professional family photos taken while on vacation.

“It’s like we’re trying to document the best moments of our life, but they’re the worst moments of our life,” said Amanda. “I’ve never been more angry and frustrated with my family than when we are taking the beautiful, loving family photos. This is my one chance and everybody sit and look like we love each other and be the appropriate distance from each other. Just all I’m asking is for one second to look in the same place. Just one second. Don’t look miserable, and look in the same place.”

They went on to talk about how the best part of a vacation is looking back and remembering it.

“When I’m on a trip with the family, I am not enjoying myself. In the moment, I am not having fun. Trips with families are not fun,” said Glennon. “It’s like you’ve paid this money. You want everything to be perfect, your people suck. It’s so much effort. But something magical happens afterwards, and you’re like, ‘That was so fun.’ It’s the after. It’s retroactive joy. It’s not joyful in the moment, and the picture represents that retroactive joy.”

Then, they discovered that vacations photos - any family photos really - should represent the people in them, not just the way you THINK your vacation should look.

“When you went to take your family vacation picture and so you stopped your family vacation, made everyone miserable, made them dress up … stood in front of the waves, that was not a picture of your family vacation at all,” said Glennon. “The thing that screws us up the most is the picture in our head of how it’s supposed to be.”

The photos we love the most, the ones that give you that “retroactive joy” are the ones that are REAL, showing everyone as they are, WHO they are. This is my favourite quote from the podcast episode:

“You look at your kid, your precious little kid who’s wearing her scrappy little shit and her hair’s all messed up and she’s out in the backyard doing her thing,” said Glennon. “If you were going to take a picture of what your kid is, you would take a picture of her right there in the backyard. Or you would send her along to school looking like the ragamuffin she is so that in 10 years you could look back and be like, ‘I remember that. That’s my baby.’”

It’s about how school photos aren’t really pictures of our kids, not who they really are. It’s about having photos that make you remember the people you love and what made you love them so much.

A family vacation to remember - and the photos to prove it

I took some photos of an incredible family last summer that I hope give them a ton of retroactive joy. They were on vacation in Saint Andrews, staying at River’s Edge Resort, a beautiful Airbnb rental. They didn’t dress up, they didn’t clean the house. They did what they would have been doing if I hadn’t be there. And I documented it all.

Swimming in the pool, drinks and laughs on the deck, preparing dinner and eating together.

And Rachel, who booked the session, told me afterwards that she was thrilled with the photos.

“I feel like you "got it" - you captured what our family is about and every time I look at the photos, I remember how much fun we had,” she said.

I do get it. And I dream of creating retroactive joy for every family I meet. I see the beauty in your small moments, and I want so badly for you to see it too (on vacation or not).

“None of us think that our lives the way they are and ourselves the way they are and our children the way they are and our days the way they are is good enough. We all think we’re supposed to be someone else. Our kids are supposed to be someone else. We’re pursuing, we’re pursuing, we’re pursuing. We never think, ‘Right now in this moment, the way things are is good enough.’ A picture is about being seen, being seen. And this idea that we have to change ourselves, change our children, dress up, look different than we are, alter ourselves. That means we are never really being seen.

“If you snap a picture of [your daughter] outside in the backyard because you’ve noticed how beautiful and free and wild she looks when she’s doing what she loves and you put that picture on the kitchen table and you say, ‘That’s my daughter,’ then she knows that what you find most beautiful and stunning about her is her the way she is.” - Glennon Doyle

Go listen to the whole podcast, and get in touch if you want me to get pictures of you and your family the way you all are.