My usual routine for a family session is to start with a group photo. Not everyone is comfortable in front of a camera, but standing together seems to take the pressure off — nobody has to carry the moment alone.
What happens next is almost always the same. People form a line. They square their shoulders to the camera. Someone turns the baby to face the lens. And then, all at once, they smile.
Nobody teaches you this as an adult. You already know it. We were trained a long time ago, kindergarten class photos, school picture day, stand up straight, look here, say cheese. Decades later, the instruction is still running in the background. Point a camera at a family and the line forms on its own.
There is nothing wrong with a photo like that. It has its own kind of value: everyone present, everyone accounted for. But it isn't what I'm looking for. I'd rather photograph a family the way they actually are with each other: turned toward one another instead of the lens, hands on shoulders, someone kissing the top of a head, someone laughing at something I didn't hear. That's the version I want them to still recognize in ten years.
