Saying Goodbye to a Year in the Life Family in Taipei

I love working with families for as long as possible because I’m a storyteller. Photography is my chosen medium, so yes, you could say I’m a photographer. But my reason for photography is to tell stories that are true, and to depict them in a beautiful way. I’m interested in all kinds of stories, but one thing is always true no matter what kind of story I’m documenting: the more access and time I get, the better. This is why documentary family photography sessions need to be longer. I need time to build trust with people, time for them to feel comfortable living authentic lives in front of me, and time to gather enough moments to tell their story.

I offer longer sessions, but my 2-hour sessions (the shortest I offer) remain my most popular. I understand why. Longer sessions are more expensive, and most people where I live in Taipei have never heard of documentary family photography. It’s a lot to ask people to let me come and hang out with them all day to do something they’ve never done before, and by the way, be yourselves!

This is where my Year in the Life projects save the day. While a full Day in the Life session (that’s from morning wake-up until bedtime) seems like a tall order, 2-hour sessions spread out over a year are not only doable, but preferable for many. Spreading the time out over an entire year allows us to capture the subtle changes that happen over a longer period of time: crawling to walking, first time nursing to a first bite of birthday cake, eating mooncakes and wearing a pomelo hat to jumping in the pool, hello to goodbye.

Saying goodbye is what I had to do recently with a wonderful family that I had the privilege of working with for an entire year. We started with a documentary newborn session and then just kept going! I was able to capture the story of their year in Taipei, which was also the first year of their son’s life. They recently returned to Germany, ready to welcome a new little one into their family.

My hope is that the photos I made for them will provide the scaffolding for their memories and many future conversations. There are things about Taipei that you grow to love if you live here: tiny alleys with crumbling brick walls (always covered in plants), the smell of tea eggs in a 7-Eleven, the kindness of the people and the way they smile at your kids. I look for these things because I know this is what makes life good here, and I know how wondrous a lot of these things seem if you come from a place where 7-Eleven is gross and sad. I’m so happy I had time to gather these details for this family’s story, so they’ll be able to remember this beautiful, crowded, welcoming, one-of-a-kind place they called home for a short time.