Life in 2021 Image Gallery

EXHIBIT VOL. 2 WINTER 2021/2022

 EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Allexandra Torres. Allyson Klein. Ania Zimnoch. Azure Mahara. Cheryl Autry. Christina Hardcastle. Christine Wright. Emma Collins. Giovanna Guiotti. Gretchen Yost. Ina Esch. Jennifer Nobriga. Julia Rose-Greim.
Kaleen Enke. Karolina Horner. Karyn Novakowski. Katie Haslam. Lauren Gayeski. Laura Gutiérrez. Lisa Hu Chen. Mafe Fernandez. Manu Rigoni. Megan Lefebvre. Melissa Helmick. Polina Subbotina. Simona Dietiker.

Hover over the image to see the photographer’s bio. Click on the image to enlarge the photo.
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Aunt Jugg at home in Yatesboro - Katie Haslam

Katie Haslam is a documentary family photographer based in Stillwater, Minnesota, USA. Before picking up her camera, she trained as a professional ballet dancer, as well as teaching Authentic Pilates for seven years in Auckland, New Zealand. Now a recovering perfectionist, a wife and mother of three, she uses her camera as a passport into the real, the poignant, the joyful and often humorous moments of childhood and family life.

Bedtime - Cheryl Autry

Cheryl Autry is a documentary family and fine art photographer located in Pasadena, California. She received her first camera from her grandfather at an early age and it became a constant by her side as she captured her daily life. Losing her mom sparked a desire to turn her photography towards families. 

Inspired by street photography and a love for storytelling, Cheryl is deeply connected to the power photography has to elicit emotion from the viewer.

Her documentary approach lends freedom to her intuitive ability to create honest and artful images, in both her family and personal work. Honored to have the trust of families, she melts into their space observing and capturing their unique stories.

Best Friends - Christine Wright

Christine is a documentary family and birth photographer living in New Jersey, halfway between Philadelphia and NYC. She resides with her ever-increasingly patient husband, two fiery daughters, and a couple of spastic cats. Christine’s sister bought her a T-shirt that summarizes her life at the moment: “She believed she could and she almost did, but someone asked for a snack and so she forgot."

Just Another Day - Christina Hardcastle

Christina Hardcastle is a documentary photographer based in Melbourne, Australia. Formerly a petroleum engineer in the US, she started photographing families and weddings in 2012. She fell in love with documentary photography when she realized she was drawn to the honest, imperfect moments that truly show the essence of family. Christina then transitioned to work as a full-time photographer upon moving to Australia in 2016. She loves traveling and any kind of experiential adventure. She currently lives with her husband, her amusing two-year-old daughter, and two big dogs who also behave like toddlers.

Save Some For Me - Allexandra Torres

Allexandra Torres is a California based commercial documentary photographer using introspection and observation to notice and tell the stories of unposed joy. Often capturing a child-like nostalgia and the audacity to be weird, quirky, or funny, Allexandra’s photos undo stereotypes and remind us that everywhere in life there is joy, love, humor, and more than what’s on the surface. Using photography, Allexandra hopes to inspire others to appreciate each other and seek happiness from being who they truly are and living in their own skin and all it’s been through.

Margot and Her Baby - Megan Lefebvre

Megan grew up in a small town outside of Vancouver, Canada. She currently lives with her husband, two little kids, French bulldog, and their tiger cat in Edmonton, Canada. As a kid, she rode her bike around her cul-de-sac wearing a hand-me-down wedding veil. She wished her parents had made a photo of her and her veil. In 2014 she earned a PhD in Public Health from the University of Alberta, Canada. She loved hanging out with her study participants and learning their stories. Megan used a research method called ethnography, a method she also fell in love with. She has very recently has brought her love for ethnography and photography together to create a documentary family photography business. Megan now makes photos like the wedding veil photo with her own family and other families. She photographs, without direction, to make photos which show the funny and tender moments of life.

By the side of the radiator - Emma Collins

Emma Collins, St. Albans, UK. Emma was first inspired to explore a documentary aesthetic after observing the changes in her own children, both within themselves and in their bonds with one another. The desire to encapsulate these deeper underlying messages in her images, brought about a change in how she perceived the medium of photography and her role as a photographer. The camera became more than just a way to create art, but also a vehicle with which to express her view of life, the central role that family plays and to normalise the celebrations and struggles of the everyday. Over the last 10 years Collins has become one of the leading family photographers in the UK, working with clients from around the world. She has acquired several top awards at the Documentary Family Awards, including consecutively winning the environmental portrait prize in 2019 and 2020 and the pandemic category in 2020, as well as being named the overall winner of the Documentary Family Awards 2020. She was selected for the Female Voice Exhibition 2019 and has recently been shortlisted for the British Photography Awards 2021 in the Documentary category and shortlisted for the Sony Alpha Female Award 2021 for the World Photography Organisation.

Untitled - Giovanna Guiotti

Masked - Kaleen Enke

Kaleen Enke is a photographer and caregiver in Atlanta, GA. She spends much of her time considering people and their relationships to each other and the space where they live. She is especially fascinated by childhood and visually capturing the magic that happens when children make believe. She loves playing cards, being warm, and fine point pens. She lives with her husband, 3 kids, and her dog in a home that is forever being renovated.

Motherhood - Karolina Horner

Love can be loud or quiet, wild or fragile, it has so many aspects. Karolina lost her father far too early, therefore she knows how important it is to make love visible and document it in everybody’s life. Life writes the most beautiful moments. Therefore she wants to capture all these big and tiny moments that happen in everyday life and show us that we are loved and cared for.

The Blue Jewel {Drought} - Getchen Yost

Gretchen Yost is a photographer based in the rural, mountain community of Pinedale, Wyoming. She is a documentary storyteller whose work centers on relationships between people, oneself, and their environments. She is particularly drawn to photographing children, with their imaginations unleashed, in the natural world.

Yell- Gretchen Yost

Gretchen Yost is a photographer based in the rural, mountain community of Pinedale, Wyoming. She is a documentary storyteller whose work centers on relationships between people, oneself, and their environments. She is particularly drawn to photographing children, with their imaginations unleashed, in the natural world.

Hair Cloud - Ina Esch

Ina Esch was born in Münster, Germany, in 1979 and studied comparative literature.

Inspired by great artists, she took courses and was presented with a fascinating visual vocabulary. She discovered a whole new language, yet another possibility to play with reality. With photography, she could show things surrounding her in a recognizable way as well as the way they are perceived by her. Also, she likes hiding behind a photograph, only giving clues to what she is feeling without having to be too literal, like a poem or a memory.

She is influenced by romantic artists like Rilke, Hoffmann, Friedrich, Turner, modernists like Nabokov and Chandler, surreal artists like Murakami, Vian, Jun Ho Cho. She likes the idea of reality being altered by feelings, like dreaming, bending the perception of things.

She works primarily in photography, but also in texts and sketches. Her work has been described as raw, visceral, intimate and free, sometimes surreal.

She works in Münster, Berlin and Hamburg, and works mainly from home or in her studio.

Laugh as Kaio laughs - Manu Rigoni

Manu Rigoni is a Brazilian photographer living in Recife, Pernambuco, Northeast of Brazil. She discovered the power of storytelling within documentary photography, even when she is underwater diving. Manu Rigoni has a degree in Audiovisual and she is currently an Art History student. Also she is a co-founder of FDF Brazil - a directory exclusively dedicated to family documentary photographers.

Bathtime - Mafe Fernández

MaFe is the short-name to Maria Fernanda. She is an ex-lawyer with an MBA, who after leaving her home country Venezuela and living different international experiences and working as a business planner reinvented herself 12 years ago into a very passionate documentary photographer while being in Miami, then open her studio in Panama City celebrating people's lives in the places she has been. She collaborated with many local wedding magazines. For the last 7 years, she has been in Zurich, Switzerland where she has also works as a wedding and family photographer. She is the mother of 2 boys (4 and 6 years) and she also documents her very own family the same way she does for others. She believes life is full of magic and that it is in the little details and moments that we build our stories. She wants you to embrace your everyday life, by documenting your routines and what seems like a normal day to you. Because it is in those tiny but important moments that we dedicate to our job, our family that builds a connection between you and the ones who surround your story and, as time passes they will become unforgettable memories that bring us back to who we are, to our own essence.

Climbing the Walls - Katie Haslam

Katie Haslam is a documentary family photographer based in Stillwater, Minnesota, USA. Before picking up her camera, she trained as a professional ballet dancer, as well as teaching Authentic Pilates for seven years in Auckland, New Zealand. Now a recovering perfectionist, a wife and mother of three, she uses her camera as a passport into the real, the poignant, the joyful and often humorous moments of childhood and family life.

Vacation At Its Best - Polina Subbotina

Polina is a proud mother of two lovely daughters. She was born in Germany and has strong Russian roots. She lived and worked in Moscow, Berlin, and Leipzig before finally moving to Hamburg with her husband. Polina worked in app and website design before following her true passion and starting her own business.

With heart and mind, she is working as a photographer. Her work is based on the idea of capturing the precious moments of our lives. She loves to find the hidden beauty, the magic of the moment, and the happiness of the people she photographs.
Polina draws her inspiration from working with children. The way they live in the moment, speak their minds, how they bring us back down to earth, and push our creativity at the same time.

Another aspect of her work is the theme of transience. For her, every day is unique and irretrievable. She sees her task in immortalizing the moment by capturing it in a way that is true to life.

Run Free My Child - Karolina Horner

Love can be loud or quiet, wild or fragile, it has so many aspects. Karolina lost her father far too early, therefore she knows how important it is to make love visible and document it in everybody’s life. Life writes the most beautiful moments. Therefore she wants to capture all these big and tiny moments that happen in everyday life and show us that we are loved and cared for.

Who Needs A Big Pool? - Julia Rose-Greim

Julia is a documentary family photographer from Halle, Germany. As a mother of three boys, she knows how stressful, chaotic, lovely, and funny life can be. She captures real life moments for families and wants to celebrate what really matters: Life is a rumbling rollercoaster full of love and challenging episodes too and all are important to remember.

Playground Geometry - Lisa Hu Chen

Lisa Hu Chen is a documentary photographer based in Southern California. Her background in graphic design helps to bring forth the color, composition and storytelling she strives to embed in every frame she fills, regardless of the subject. Camera always in hand and four kids in tow, Lisa and her husband live for every opportunity to wanderlust and eat their way through cities and countrysides around the world.

Untitled - Polina Subbotina

Polina is a proud mother of two lovely daughters. She was born in Germany and has strong Russian roots. She lived and worked in Moscow, Berlin, and Leipzig before finally moving to Hamburg with her husband. Polina worked in app and website design before following her true passion and starting her own business.

With heart and mind, she is working as a photographer. Her work is based on the idea of capturing the precious moments of our lives. She loves to find the hidden beauty, the magic of the moment, and the happiness of the people she photographs.
Polina draws her inspiration from working with children. The way they live in the moment, speak their minds, how they bring us back down to earth, and push our creativity at the same time.

Another aspect of her work is the theme of transience. For her, every day is unique and irretrievable. She sees her task in immortalizing the moment by capturing it in a way that is true to life.

Kid In A Blanket- Jennifer Nobriga

Jennifer Nobriga is a documentary photographer, who strives to capture life’s everyday moments in an unconventional way. She lives in the suburbs of Virginia, with her husband, three kids, and a dog named Oreo.

Good Morning - Laura Gutierrez

Laura is a Documentary Family Photographer based in Mexico City who loves to take pictures of life, just as it is. She decided to focus on family photography since she became the mother of 2 premature babies who are now 14 and 11 years old. At that time, the situation with each baby was so delicate, that she couldn't keep a visual record of either one. She realized that we often rely on memory for so much, that we forget it is a frail and inaccurate way of capturing fleeting moments. Today, Laura wants to give people the opportunity to have a record of the intimacy of their relationships, to find magic in the simplicity of their life and, above all, to tell their story in a beautiful way. She has been photographing families since 2014.

Freedom - Lauren Gayeski

Lauren Gayeski is a documentary family photographer, born and raised on the New Jersey shore. Though formally educated as a nurse, her journey into photography was led by a natural curiosity to explore and document the human experience. Her work echoes the complexity and significance of everyday life, highlighting stories of coming of age, our connection to water, and what it means to be human. She is a lover of words, both writing them and reading them, though she prefers run-on sentences and her nightstand includes no less than six half-read books, all dogeared with evidence of good intentions. Lauren lives with her husband and three teenage sons in Ocean City, NJ.

The Kids Are Alright - Azure Mahara

Azure Mahara is a professional photographer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She loves taking documentary images that spark familiarity and mystery. While Azure has won awards, appeared in magazines, and received recognition from art museums and National Geographic, her favorite accomplishment is managing life with 4 kids under the age of 8 all while continuing to grow as an artist. You can find her work at azuremahara.com.

Just Swim - Lauren Gayeski

Lauren Gayeski is a documentary family photographer, born and raised on the New Jersey shore. Though formally educated as a nurse, her journey into photography was led by a natural curiosity to explore and document the human experience. Her work echoes the complexity and significance of everyday life, highlighting stories of coming of age, our connection to water, and what it means to be human. She is a lover of words, both writing them and reading them, though she prefers run-on sentences and her nightstand includes no less than six half-read books, all dogeared with evidence of good intentions. Lauren lives with her husband and three teenage sons in Ocean City, NJ.

Home on the 4th of July - Lauren Gayeski

Lauren Gayeski is a documentary family photographer, born and raised on the New Jersey shore. Though formally educated as a nurse, her journey into photography was led by a natural curiosity to explore and document the human experience. Her work echoes the complexity and significance of everyday life, highlighting stories of coming of age, our connection to water, and what it means to be human. She is a lover of words, both writing them and reading them, though she prefers run-on sentences and her nightstand includes no less than six half-read books, all dogeared with evidence of good intentions. Lauren lives with her husband and three teenage sons in Ocean City, NJ.

Homeschool - Karyn Novakowski

Karyn uses a documentary approach and intentional portraiture to tell introspective stories of her children and extended family members. She brings compassion, curiosity, and a sense of humor to her images as she documents children honestly, in their joy, awkwardness, inquisitiveness, and boredom. Rather than being timeless, Karyn’s images are contemporary. Grounding her subjects in time and space, she captures present day surroundings and happenings along with the ephemeral nature of childhood.

It wasn’t until college that Karyn became interested in photography. At that time landscapes were her focus. She and her friends would grab their cameras and drive for hours in Pennsylvania Amish country in the hopes of stumbling across a covered bridge or a historic barn to use as the backdrop for a portrait. Abandoned farm equipment, a horse drawn buggy, and clothes drying on the clothesline were favorite subjects. During this time, she also developed an interest in aerial photographs which became part of her undergraduate and graduate research in geology. In 2016, when Karyn was pregnant with her second child she started taking online photography classes targeted at moms. She spent the majority of her maternity leave photographing her newborn, carrying him around the house to different types of light and settings.

Karyn has been included in exhibitions at the Dallas Center for Photography, International Center for Photography, and Curated Fridge. She has been published in Shots Magazine and has received awards from the Documentary Family Awards and National Association of Professional Childhood Photographers. She was a participant in the Atelier 33 class at the Griffin Museum of Photography.

Preteen and Homeschool Life - Melissa Helmick

Melissa is a birth and parenthood photographer located in Southeastern Virginia. Birth photography is her focus but she loves telling the honest, and often emotional, journeys through the different seasons of parenthood from bump to baby, including the postpartum period. She is also finishing training to be a birth, postpartum, and bereavement doula. Recently she has discovered her heart's work and has begun a passion project called Overcoming in Parenthood highlighting the silent struggles parents face in their journey to becoming parents or during parenting days. Subjects included are Domestic Violence, Postpartum Depression/Anxiety, Pregnancy & Infant Loss, Pregnancy After Loss, Infertility, ADHD, Mental Health and so much more. It is her goal to bring awareness to these stigmatized topics as well as a sense of community and healing. When she isn't throwing herself into her passions at work, Melissa can be found taking self-portraits and photographing flowers as well as trying to keep up with the chaos at home with her husband, 3 rambunctious children, and their dog, Lilly. She thoroughly enjoys a good book, creating art of any kind, herbalism, and all things coffee and tea.

Mom, Teacher, Cleaner… Now Hairdresser - Allyson Klein

Hello. Allyson Klein. Nature lover. Traveler. Observer. Mother. Photographer. Late bloomer. An American who calls Belfast home. Prior to photography, Allyson worked as an award-winning graphic designer in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. Fast forward twenty years, four countries, two children and countless hours spent wandering down the path less traveled with a camera in hand, Allyson discovered she connected deeply to the documentary genre. Whether film, digital or smartphone, you can always find her stopped on the side of the road to catch great light or to capture her kids doing every day yet memorable things. She finds beauty in the everyday moments. Moments filled with humour and joy, tension and fragility, sadness and pain. It’s all part of life and it all deserves to be remembered.

Sarah Jane and the Scissors - Allyson Klein

Hello. Allyson Klein. Nature lover. Traveler. Observer. Mother. Photographer. Late bloomer. An American who calls Belfast home. Prior to photography, Allyson worked as an award-winning graphic designer in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. Fast forward twenty years, four countries, two children and countless hours spent wandering down the path less traveled with a camera in hand, Allyson discovered she connected deeply to the documentary genre. Whether film, digital or smartphone, you can always find her stopped on the side of the road to catch great light or to capture her kids doing everyday yet memorable things. She finds beauty in the everyday moments. Moments filled with humour and joy, tension and fragility, sadness and pain. It’s all part of life and it all deserves to be remembered.

Famished - Lisa Hu Chen

Lisa Hu Chen is a documentary photographer based in Southern California. Her background in graphic design helps to bring forth the color, composition and storytelling she strives to embed in every frame she fills, regardless of the subject. Camera always in hand and four kids in tow, Lisa and her husband live for every opportunity to wanderlust and eat their way through cities and countrysides around the world.

I closed my eyes and didn’t see - Manu Rigoni

Manu Rigoni is a Brazilian photographer living in Recife, Pernambuco, Northeast of Brazil. She discovered the power of storytelling within documentary photography, even when she is underwater diving. Manu Rigoni has a degree in Audiovisual and she is currently an Art History student. Also, she is a co-founder of FDF Brazil - a directory exclusively dedicated to family documentary photographers.

Enjoy Little Things - Simona Dietiker

Simona is a documentary photographer based in Switzerland, where she lives with her husband and her two daughters. Since 2017, she’s been documenting family life, as well as births and small businesses. She mainly works near Zurich but loves to travel the whole country.

As a nostalgic person, photos have always played a big part in her life. With the birth of her first daughter, she rediscovered the importance of all these small little moments, of the true emotions and relationships; recognizing the beauty, the uniqueness of all these messy, funny, emotional moments of everyday life. She loves to capture the little gestures between family members that tell the story of how much love they feel for each other.

The Day the Power Went Out- Jennifer Nobriga

Jennifer Nobriga is a documentary photographer, who strives to capture life’s everyday moments in an unconventional way. She lives in the suburbs of Virginia, with her husband, three kids, and a dog named Oreo.

Future Vision - Simona Dietiker

Simona is a documentary photographer based in Switzerland, where she lives with her husband and her two daughters. Since 2017, she’s been documenting family life, as well as births and small businesses. She mainly works near Zurich but loves to travel the whole country.

As a nostalgic person, photos have always played a big part in her life. With the birth of her first daughter, she rediscovered the importance of all these small little moments, of the true emotions and relationships; recognizing the beauty, the uniqueness of all these messy, funny, emotional moments of everyday life. She loves to capture the little gestures between family members that tell the story of how much love they feel for each other.

Home Office - Christine Wright

Christine is a documentary family and birth photographer living in New Jersey, halfway between Philadelphia and NYC. She resides with her ever-increasingly patient husband, two fiery daughters, and a couple of spastic cats. Christine’s sister bought her a T-shirt that summarizes her life at the moment: “She believed she could and she almost did, but someone asked for a snack and so she forgot."

Home Birth - Ania Zimnoch

Polish Born Brooklyn expat living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Ania specializes in family and birth photography and enjoys documenting everyday life. She spent much of the pandemic in her Airstream camper traveling the country with her husband, daughter and a little Yorkie Milo, and photographing the beautiful country of ours and fellow campers.

The Kidney and The Cancer - Melissa Helmick

Melissa is a birth and parenthood photographer located in Southeastern Virginia. Birth photography is her focus but she loves telling the honest, and often emotional, journeys through the different seasons of parenthood from bump to baby, including the postpartum period. She is also finishing training to be a birth, postpartum, and bereavement doula. Recently she has discovered her heart's work and has begun a passion project called Overcoming in Parenthood highlighting the silent struggles parents face in their journey to becoming parents or during parenting days. Subjects included are Domestic Violence, Postpartum Depression/Anxiety, Pregnancy & Infant Loss, Pregnancy After Loss, Infertility, ADHD, Mental Health and so much more. It is her goal to bring awareness to these stigmatized topics as well as a sense of community and healing. When she isn't throwing herself into her passions at work, Melissa can be found taking self-portraits and photographing flowers as well as trying to keep up with the chaos at home with her husband, 3 rambunctious children, and their dog, Lilly. She thoroughly enjoys a good book, creating art of any kind, herbalism, and all things coffee and tea.