Family Photos Project: Before and Afters

Everyone likes to take photos of their family, from the moment that first child arrives. Every moment seems incredibly precious, and the fear that you’ll miss something amazing spurs many parents to become amateur documentarians in their efforts to ensure they capture every potentially important moment in the lives of their family. This often even gets turned onto themselves, as well, with every moment of the day a potential photographic project. The idea is simple and powerful: Better to have a thousand photos you never use or look at than miss that one amazing moment.

Of course, another approach to family photos is to create your own amazing moments. By controlling the moment, you guarantee you not only capture it, you also get to determine all of the details and parameters. Plus, it’s a lot of fun to have a photography project that involves your family and its peculiar brand of crazy. Here’s a great long-term project that’s a lot of fun, creates a tradition everyone can take part in, and results in some very powerful photos you can enjoy for decades to come.

The Before and After Project

It’s a simple concept with a powerful and complex execution. The basic outline for this family photos project is deceptively basic: Whenever there’s an event of any kind in your family’s lives, take a photo before, and then take a photo after.

For example: School formal night. Every parent takes photos before this seminal event in their children’s lives. The kids are groomed, calm, looking heartbreakingly adult in their finery. How many people capture that moment later on when the kids come home, tired, ties undone, shoes in hand. But that means you’re missing out on half the moment.

Tips and Tricks

The Before and After Project is a long-term, lifetime kind of project. It needs a little more planning than just whipping out your phone whenever something seems interesting.

• Get your family’s buy in. This isn’t something you’re going to be able to force everyone into. Make it fun.
• When the kids get older, enlist them. They may not always come home promptly when something’s over, and as they get older their desire for privacy will increase, so letting them snap their own ‘afters’ will not only be fun for them, it’ll make the logistics a lot easier.
• Plan ahead. Sometimes your Before and Afters will be sudden inspirations, but most often you will have plenty of warning that a big moment is coming, so don’t be afraid to plan ahead and ensure you get those moments.

If you pursue this idea diligently, within a few years you’ll have some remarkable photo sets that will make not just amazing photos of the people you love, but amazing art. And if you decide some of those sets are worth displaying on your walls as high-quality wall art, just click here and we’ll handle that for you with pride.