The Best Taipei Locations for Documentary Family Photography & An Outdoor Documentary Family Photoshoot in a Tienmu Park | Taipei Family Photographer

Apr 21

People typically imagine outdoor family photoshoots in Taipei as posed photos either in a beautiful location or in front of an interesting landmark that screams TAIWAN! As a documentary family photographer, I approach them a little differently. Yes, I do like beautiful locations or locations that help tell the story of your life in Taiwan (night markets, Dihua Street, etc.), but I’m not interested in having people just stand in these locations and look at the camera. The resulting photos would say something about where you are and what everyone currently looks like, but they wouldn’t say as much about quirky personality traits (that may change soon!), your relationships with one another, and what life currently feels like in this particular place and time. To get at these deeper parts of your family story, it’s better for everyone to spend time together in a place that’s meaningful or a place they’re curious or excited about, doing something they enjoy doing or simply exploring.

Lately, most of my clients have been visitors from other countries, and they naturally want to know where a good place for their session would be. I understand that they don’t know Taipei as well as I do and need some guidance, but I also don’t want to just pick a random place that doesn’t say anything about who this family is or isn’t a good place for people to explore and interact. I hate to kick the ball back to my clients, but the truth is that documentary family photography is more of a creative collaboration than a guided experience. For this reason, I’ve added the following advice about good family photoshoot locations to my FAQs page:

Documentary family photography is about capturing what’s most meaningful for your family and what communicates the most about your story. Picking a location that is beautiful or cool or looks quintessentially “Taiwanese” makes sense for posed photos but doesn’t really tell a story about your family on its own. Ask yourself the following questions when thinking about a location:
Is there a specific place that my family wants to go so we can explore or do something together?
Where do we all have the most fun together?
What do I want to remember about this time in our lives and Taiwan in general, and what places are a part of these memories?
TIP: Locations that just involve a lot of walking and no stops to do things together usually don’t make for very interesting photos.

And that’s really all there is to it! Once the family understands the above, we can collaborate on the best place for everyone to play, explore, interact, and just be their quirky, wonderful selves together. This matters more than perfect weather, the best light, or whether everyone has every hair on their head in place.

The photos below are from a recent outdoor session at a park in Tienmu with a dear Year in the Life family. It was a VERY bright day with lots of stark contrast between the shade and full sun, but I always enjoy that challenge because when the light hits, it really hits!