What is a Lifestyle Photographer

Lifestyle Photographer – Lifestyle photography is a form of photography that mainly aims to capture portraits of people in real-life events. Also in situations, or milestones in a pleasing artistic manner. The primary goal is to tell stories about people’s lives or to inspire people at different times.

Even though lifestyle photography is about telling a story. It is also documenting the subject’s natural environment. Lighting and posing still plays a huge factor in this regard.

Lifestyle photography is “positioning” in an informal way. Such that the photographer gives some prompts and then documents the natural responses and candid moments that follow.

Most lifestyle photographers prefer to position their subjects strategically in natural lighting for a “real-life” effect. But some often use external lighting as well in a manner that looks as if it is pre-existing in the environment.

Edward Ruthven Photography a Lifestyle Photographer

Lifestyle photography lies between documentary and classic portraiture. Where documentary photography is leaving the couple / family to totally do their own thing and capturing moments on the fly. Whereas classic portraiture is where the photographer has full control of posing, lighting, ambience, clothing etc.

This means that a lifestyle photographer does a mix between documentary and classic. He does a small amount of control while allowing a lot of natural reactions.

Capturing emotions for me is the order of the day, as this is the most natural form of portraiture photography.

Couple / Family

My form of couple / family photography has been primarily lifestyle photography. I prefer to use minimum posing control, but more guiding of the portraiture photos I need to capture.

To loosen up the couple / family, I get the family to walk towards me, while looking around their environment. This gives a very natural looking photo / set of photos.

Children

I find that children have minimal tolerance towards getting guided / controlled for more than a short period. Therefore, you need to allow them freedom to express themselves and capture those moments.

I will get the children to play and capture those moments of their enjoyment of just playing. I will also get the parents to hopefully join in with some of the play.

Weddings with a form by a Lifestyle Photographer

Due to my love of illustrative type of photography, I can combine traditional photography with photo-journalism photography.

Often, I get the couple loosened up with a walk etc. I love to just guide them in basic poses, but still allow them through encouragement to be themselves. Stolen moments are often great photographic opportunities.

And prior to the wedding engagement shoot also allows for the couple and me to get to know one another. This allows for getting better wedding photos.

Location Environments

I have used many environments that lend themselves towards great lifestyle photography projects. I prefer open areas where there is a lot of freedom for couples / families to express themselves.

Unless their home environment’s has large open spaces, I prefer not to use their homes.

Lighting

I love to use either natural lighting or flash photography or a combination of those. The equipment I have enables me to be able to do both. This includes flashes, strobes, scrims, reflectors etc.

Due to my use of an assistant, I can add off camera strobes over and above on camera flash. My assistant is also able to handle the scrims, reflectors etc.