My style of family photography is mostly documentary family photography, meaning completely unposed, authentic, fly on the wall photographs of real connections, personalities and everyday life. I say mostly because I think family portraits are important to take occasionally, and I try to give a few good ones to every family I work with.

I was so honored to photograph Penny's 1st birthday party last week. It was my first Korean Dol, and it was lovely. Of course when I was first contacted to photograph the event I jumped on Wikipedia, which explained:

Dol (doljanchi, or tol) is probably one of the best-known of the Korean birthday celebrations. Dol is celebrated for the first birthday of a child. When Korea had little medicinal knowledge, many newborns would die from childhood diseases or because of Korea’s seasonal temperature differences. When a child lived to be a year old during that period, it was a very joyous occasion.

I recently photographed this awesome family at a park in Collier Hills. I have been their family photographer for a few years now, and it's been great watching their family grow! Their newest family member is a few of months old, and oh so patient with his sweet big sisters!

I photographed this super cool family on a Sunday afternoon in Piedmont Park recently. It was a cloudy, wintry day--which was great because it made for some moody family photographs that I love!

Most of the leaves have fallen in Atlanta, the cold has arrived, and the busy fall family photo season is coming to an end. It was a fun one, for sure, with too many awesome families to do a blog post on every single one. But the Thoele family's session was one of my favorites. A great example of documentary family photography, as I didn’t direct or pose them, but instead I simply hung out with them as they went for a walk around the neighborhood, and I made pictures out of their personalities and connections.