How to choose a location that actually means something for your family session

There is a question I ask every family before we talk about anything else. It sounds simple but it almost never gets a simple answer.

“Where does your family feel most like itself?”

Not the scenic spot. Not where everyone else has gone. Where your family actually gravitates when nobody's choosing for you?

The answers to that question are where the most honest family photographs come from.

Why location matters more than most families realize

Most families, when they first start thinking about getting photos taken, aren't thinking about location the way I'm describing it here. They're thinking about a backdrop. Somewhere scenic. Somewhere that'll look good behind everyone when they line up and smile.

And there's nothing wrong with that instinct. Beautiful places make beautiful photographs.

But a beautiful backdrop and a meaningful location are two different things. One produces an image that looks nice. The other produces an image that, ten years from now, brings you back to a specific season of your family's life the moment you look at it.

That's the difference worth chasing.

The problem with choosing a location because it photographs well

If you choose a location because it's photogenic, the location becomes a costume. Your family is essentially borrowing someone else's scenery for an hour and then going home.

The image you get might be lovely. But it'll show you where you went for photos. It won't show you who you are.

My partner Diana and I have photographed families at some of the most beautiful spots in North County San Diego. The images from those sessions are often striking. But the ones that make families stop and catch their breath when they see them for the first time, the ones where someone reaches for a tissue before they're ready to, those almost never come from the most scenic location. They come from the most honest one.

A session that proved the point

We worked with a family who almost picked a different spot entirely. The mom had her heart set on a flower field about forty minutes from home. Beautiful place. The kind of location that shows up in every San Diego photography roundup.

But when we sat down and asked our usual question, where does your family actually go, she paused. Then she mentioned a stretch of sidewalk two blocks from their house. The one their son rides his scooter down every single afternoon after school. The same loop, the same cracks in the pavement he always avoids, the same mailbox he circles before heading home.

It's not a beautiful sidewalk. It would never make anyone's list of scenic San Diego locations.

We photographed there instead. The light wasn't perfect. The background was ordinary. But the image they ended up framing and hanging is the son mid-scooter-ride, tongue out in concentration, his dad jogging just behind him with the kind of half-laugh that happens when you're trying not to be in the shot. That photograph couldn't have happened anywhere else. It's entirely, specifically theirs.

That's what a meaningful location does that a photogenic one can't.

What makes a location meaningful

A meaningful location is one your family already has a relationship with before the camera arrives.

It might be a trail you've hiked so many times the kids know which tree has the good climbing branch. A kitchen where Sunday mornings have a particular rhythm that everyone in the family recognizes. A neighborhood park that doesn't look like much on a map but holds years of your family's history in its grass and benches and worn-down paths.

T

he location doesn't need to be dramatic. It needs to be true.

When I'm talking with a family before a session, I'm not working from a list of recommended spots. I'm listening. I'm asking questions and then asking the questions behind those questions, pushing gently past the first answer, which is usually the scenic one, toward the second or third answer, which is usually the real one.

I spent fifteen years teaching middle school before picking up a camera professionally, and one thing that stuck with me from the classroom is this: you can't truly teach something you don't understand. The same is true here. If a family can't explain to me why a place matters to them, it probably doesn't matter to them the way a meaningful location does. But when they find the one that does, they know it. And so do I.

When the right location is somewhere new

Not every family has a place they return to. Some families are at their most themselves when they're discovering somewhere for the first time. That's just as valid and just as documentable.

We've photographed couples spending an afternoon exploring a new neighborhood, stopping at an ice cream shop they'd never tried, wandering without a plan. We've taken families out to slot canyons and hidden trails in the hills east of San Diego where the landscape feels like it belongs somewhere else entirely. We've found picnic spots and lakeside paths and eucalyptus groves that most people drive past without stopping.

If what your family loves most is the feeling of being somewhere new together, that's the location. The specific place matters less than the spirit of exploration you bring to it.

The conversation that finds the answer

If you're trying to figure out the right location for your own family, here is the question I'd start with.

Think about the last time your family was together and nobody was performing for anyone. No one was trying to look a certain way or act a certain way. Everyone was just in it. Where were you?

That place, or something close to it, is almost certainly where your family's most honest photographs will come from.

It might be obvious once you ask the question. Or it might take a few minutes of sitting with it before the real answer surfaces. Either way, it's worth finding before you start thinking about what to wear or what time of day the light is best.

“The light will be fine. The location is the thing.”

If you're curious what documentary family photography looks like in practice, What Is Documentary Family Photography is a good place to start. And if you already have a place in mind, reach out and let's talk about it.