What Are Family Photos For?

I’m going to start this post with an image.

A family walking down the bank of the Salt River in Mesa, Arizona.
Everyone holding hands, smiling at each other, and walking in the beautiful golden hour.
Clothes coordinated but effortless.

We recognize this image instantly because we’ve seen versions of it everywhere.

It matches what we’ve been taught a “good” family photo looks like: warm light, togetherness, harmony, ease. It looks like a beautiful family photo — the kind many of us would be happy to frame, share, or use on a holiday card.

This style of image has been repeated so often that it now feels almost universal — comforting, aspirational, and familiar.

If you were looking for your next family session, you might already be sending me a message asking me about the location— there is even a wild horse in the background!

If I didn’t tell you anything else, you probably wouldn’t question anything.

And that’s the point.

However, now, I am going to tell you that this image was generated by AI, Google Gemini, with a prompt.

Here is the prompt I used to generate that image.

can you create a lifestyle family photo for a family of 5. the photo location is at salt river in mesa arizona. the session happens during golden hour. the family has mom, dad, 2 boys and a girl. they are all dressed in pastel boho style clothes. they are holding hands and walking along the river bank smiling at each other.

How do you feel now?

When I Tried to Go Deeper

Out of curiosity, I tried to create a different kind of image.

One that wasn’t about how a family should look — but about how life actually unfolds.

Something quieter.
Less polished.
More specific.

And suddenly, everything felt different.

The image didn’t land the same way.
It felt staged, even when it wasn’t meant to be.
Something about it felt hollow.

Here is the prompt I used for these images.

can you create an image of a mom with a newborn baby nursing in a very small home in the living room. she has been sleeping on the couch so the night time feeding would not affecrt her husband and her toddler. She has set up a pack n play by the couch. The mom looks tired due to lack of sleep. there are uncleaned up toys on the floor as well.

The Difference Isn’t Technology — It’s Intention

Here’s where I need to be honest.

The first image wasn’t photographed at all. It was generated. And that doesn’t make it wrong.

I do not hate AI at all. As a matter of fact, I think AI can be useful in many aspects of life and even in the photography industry.

What it reveals, though, is how much visual language already exists around ideal family life. There are countless reference points — millions of images reinforcing what togetherness is supposed to look like.

So creating that image was easy.

Creating something real was not.

Why Documentary Images Are Harder to Fake

Documentary family photography doesn’t follow a template.

It’s rooted in specific relationships, lived experience, context that can’t be generalized, moments that don’t repeat.

There isn’t a single visual formula for real life. That’s what makes it meaningful — and also what makes it difficult to replicate without actually being there.

I can confidently bet that if you feed any of the real-life images to AI and ask it to describe the image, and then feed that description back as a prompt to generate the image back, it still would not be able to recreate the image to feel real. The amount of details in a real-life image contains more information than AI could reference.

Family Photos Aren’t Vision Boards

This isn’t a critique of beautiful images.

Lifestyle photos have their place. They can feel uplifting and affirming. They can reflect how we want to see ourselves.

But family photos don’t have to function as vision boards.

They don’t need to show the ideal version of life.
They don’t need to prove that everything is together.

They can simply document what is.

When Perfect Starts to Feel Cheap

Something unexpected happens when perfection becomes easy.

It loses its weight.

When anyone can generate a flawless family image in seconds, what starts to stand out isn’t polish — it’s specificity.

The photo that couldn’t belong to anyone else.
The moment that only makes sense if you know the people in it.
The image that doesn’t try to impress, but remembers.

Why Real Life Matters More Now

Real family photographs don’t exist to perform.

They exist to preserve the rhythm of your days, the way your home feels, the interactions that seem ordinary now but won’t always be.

Those images don’t always feel exciting in the moment. But they grow in value over time.

Because they’re honest.

Choosing Intention Over Appearance

Technology isn’t the problem.

The question is simply this:

Do we want our family photos to reflect an ideal —
or to hold a life?

Both choices are valid. But they come from very different intentions.

And intention shapes meaning.

In a world where perfection can be generated on demand, real life stands out.

Not because it’s flawless —
but because it’s unrepeatable.

And that’s worth remembering.