A Day in the Life-Documenting Famillies
A Day in the Life
This is a dream come true for me. I have no idea what took me so long, but now I’ve started. When I started Fabiola Fotography, my sister Vivian asked me what would be my ideal session. I told her what I had been visualizing in my head… Photographing children in their home just being themselves.
As I look back at my own memories, not just as a child but also as a young mom, I can visualize snapshots and play small movie type snippets in my mind like a slideshow; a lifetime of memories embedded in my mind and heart. Most of them are at home, Mima in the kitchen cooking up huge amounts of food for our big family of seven, the whole family sitting at the table for dinners filled with conversation and laughter. I can still “see” my baby brother pouting about food (what a picky eater he was); he would have to stay at the table even when we are all done as his food got cold and nasty looking. I remember my dad (aka Pipo) playing baseball with us in the backyard, our many dogs that I loved and so on and so on. As siblings we were all so different with unique personalties and interests.
With my own two children the memories are more about their first steps down our Tampa apartment hallway, the highchair messes, all the messes, the tender moments of sitting them on the kitchen counter while I prepared the meals, cuddling in bed with them, reading to them. They would pretend the entire house was a ship, or make tents out of sheets and omg so much more. Now with my two grand-babies, I am seeing things through a whole new optical, and the memory “movie clips” we make everyday in sunny Sarasota are beautiful!
These are the sort of memories I enjoy capturing in “A Day in the Life” sessions for my clients. The classic “everybody smile & look at the camera” photos have there place and are beautiful, but these totally candid moments of kids being kids, full in of unposed smiles and genuine family time in the familiarity of their own home own is priceless. The simple things we might take for granted everyday that make each family unique, those are the moments they will forever treasure in their “slideshow of memories”.
This year I started to mention this documentary style family photography to some of my local Sarasota clients and the reaction has been very positive. In fact, I recently had the privilege of having this kind of session with a local Sarasota family. We all had a great time and the kids loved it! The way it works is I spend a few hours in the client’s home, usually just before breakfast while the children are still in their pajamas or not even out of bed yet, and stay until a while after lunch. At first the kids may seem a little shy, but they adjust fairly quickly. Even if they have never met me, it doesn't take long for them to warm up. After all, they are at home and just being themselves in a familiar environment is natural for children. You will never hear me say “smile and look at the camera”. I want to capture life as it happens; real, unposed, happy kids and busy moms and dads making memories wherever they call home.
