Mini, Lifestyle, or Storytelling: Which Family Session Is Yours?
A mini isn't a smaller version of the others. The real difference is how much I direct you, and how much of your actual day ends up in the pictures.
Most people try to pick a session by the price or the length, which tells you almost nothing about what the afternoon is going to be like. The real difference between my three sessions is how much I direct you, and how much of your actual day ends up in the pictures.
Here's the part that surprises people. The shortest session is the most posed one. Not because it matters less, but because fifteen minutes has no room for warming up, so structure has to do that job instead. The more time we have, the less I direct, and the more I just follow you around.
You'll notice this page gets busier as it goes. That's on purpose. The longer a session runs, the more real the moments get and the more of them there are to keep, so each one below shows more pictures than the last.
15 minutes
About an hour
About two hours
The Weekend Matinee
Fifteen minutes, and I'll tell you where to stand
Meat and potatoes, in the best sense.
There's no time to ease into this one, so I don't pretend otherwise. I've already scouted the spot, I already know where the light is, and I have the sequence in my head before your car doors open. Everyone together. Then the kids. Then each parent with each kid. Then everyone again, now that they've forgotten I'm here.
You'll be directed more in these fifteen minutes than in anything else I offer, and that's deliberate. Clear instructions are what make a short session work. The alternative is fifteen minutes of everyone standing around deciding what to do, which is fourteen minutes of nothing and one good frame.
What you get back is clean, warm and true, and it does one job extremely well. The card. The post. One framed print in the hallway that says this is who we were this year. Nobody needs a two-hour epic every single fall.
What it isn't is wandering. The location comes with the date, the time slot comes with the schedule, and the light is whatever those fifteen minutes hand us. We work combinations of people, not geography.
Time15 minutesYours to keep15 photosFrom$295
One frame, one spot, everybody in it at once. That's the job.
The Picture Book
An hour, and I'll give you something to do
The lifestyle session. The one most families want.
You pick the place. Then I pick the hour, because every location has one time of day when it's at its best, and I'd rather chase that than split the difference. Sunlit trees behave differently at 4:40 than they do at 5:20, and an hour of the right light is worth more than three of the wrong kind.
Then we take our time, and that changes everything. The first ten minutes are usually warm-up, and I plan for them, which is exactly why this is the session for the kid who needs a while to decide a stranger with a camera is fine. Nobody is behind schedule. Nothing is being wasted.
Once everyone has loosened up I work in prompts, games and light direction. It isn't posing so much as handing you something to do and then photographing what happens next. The whole session is built around movement and connection rather than arrangement.
And we move. Sunlit trees for one stretch, a blanket for the next, walking by the lake for the one after that. Different looks, different perspectives, real range in a single gallery. It's fun, it's dynamic, and it's forgiving. Rambunctious kids aren't a problem here. There's time.
TimeAbout an hourYours to keep75+ photosFrom$650
One location, one hour, and already the looks start multiplying.
The Side Quest
Two hours, and I'll follow you
A little day in the life.
This one starts with a question that has nothing to do with photography: what would you actually be doing? Ice cream and a loop around the park. A slow morning making pancakes in your own kitchen. An afternoon on Balboa Island going after everything the fun zone has to offer.
There's still a plan. We give the day a map so nobody is standing around wondering what comes next, and so I know where the light will be when we get there. But this is the least directed thing I do. Once we're moving, I mostly stay out of the way.
What I'm working instead is perspective. From inside the scene rather than across from it. Low, over a shoulder, through a doorway, past somebody's arm. The angle keeps changing because the day keeps changing, and that's what makes a gallery like this feel like it lifts off the page instead of lying flat on it.
It's the one that looks least like photographs of your family and most like a record of your family. Two hours, because a real thing takes as long as it takes.
TimeAbout two hoursYours to keep95+ photosFrom$850
Ten frames from one afternoon, and nobody is standing still in any of them.
None of these is the upgrade. They're three different kinds of afternoon.
A Matinee photo and a Side Quest photo get the same camera, the same eye and the same editing. What changes isn't quality, it's how much of your life is allowed into the frame. Fifteen minutes gives you a portrait of your family. An hour gives you a portrait of your family moving. Two hours gives you the afternoon itself.
So which one is yours?
- Take the Matinee if
- You need a card photo and a handful of good frames, your group is six or fewer, and your kids don't need long to settle. It's also the right answer in a year when you already did a big session and just want the update.
- Take the Picture Book if
- It's your first real session together, or somebody needs warming up, or you want range in one gallery. It's the default for a reason, and it's the one I book most.
- Take the Side Quest if
- You already have portraits and what you're missing is the ordinary stuff. The Saturday morning. The place you always go. The thing you'll want back in ten years and never thought to photograph.
Not sure which is yours?
Tell me who's coming and what your family is usually in the middle of, and I'll tell you which one I'd book. I've talked plenty of people out of the more expensive option.
