Cat Thrasher Photography

My knee-jerk reaction, when asked what is the most important thing in documentary portrait photography, is to say “emotion!”

I think that many documentary and photojournalistic portrait photographers say this.

But then I stop and ask myself: what does that mean, really? Tangibly? Emotions are so open-ended: what kind of emotion am I looking for? Is the answer always positive? Is it always happiness, love and joy?

Documentary photography is defined as truthful, objective, and candid photographic representations…the photographer is not supposed to influence the scene. Yet, isn’t it my responsibility as a portrait photographer to elicit this emotion? This seems contradictory.

So, over the past year, I’ve realized that what I am actually thinking about during a documentary family session, or while shooting a wedding, is relationships. Or more specifically: I’m thinking about interactions between people.

Couples, and families in general, each have a unique way of interacting with each other, and that interaction changes with each of life’s pivotal events, and the maturity of their constantly-developing relationships.

A newly engaged couple might look at each other with intense love right after they kiss, a new mother might look at her newborn with unrelenting awe a week after she gives birth, and a three-year-old might grasp his father’s hand for dear life when in an unfamiliar place. All of these interactions between family members are the gravy of being part of one, and as a family photographer, my greatest desire is to capture those interactions that best illustrate a family’s relationship.

This is not to say that the answer to what matters is no longer emotion. On the contrary, that’s what relationships are made of: emotion exchanges…a constantly changing daily gamut of emotional fun. It’s what makes intimate relationships intimate: the exchange of deep, guttural emotion.

In the end, I’m looking to observe real emotions, as they unfold from afar, documentary-style. I am looking to represent the way that emotions happen in real, tangible life. And that’s why I’m looking for the interaction: an actual physical moment that I can capture in-camera….a freeze-frame moment of your relationship as it exists, right now.