Family Photo Session Ideas (in the Places Your Life Is Actually Happening)

When people start planning family photos, the first question is almost always: “Soooo… where should we do it?”

And, I mean, fair. You start searching family photo session ideas and suddenly you’re knee-deep in sweeping fields and suspiciously well-behaved children standing serenely in tall grass (probably past their bedtime if that golden light is saying anything), as they wouldn’t dare ask for a snack mid-photo.

(Which, respectfully… couldn’t be your household.)

Don’t get me wrong, those places are beautiful. And I’ve done many a family photo session in a sweeping field myself. But, when done without the story-shaping and intention-building that I live and die by, they can also get a little… copy/paste.

And your life is… not. In the slightest.

So instead of asking yourself where you and your family are going to look the most unlike yourselves (just being honest with ya), as your friendly neighborhood Vermont family photographer, I’m going to gently— lovingly, insistently— ask you a different question: 

Where does your life keep happening, whether you planned for it or not?

It’s those places—the ones you return to over and over again, with a double-shot maple latte in one hand and a toddler in his ‘but, why’ phase in the other— where we usually find the best of the good stuff. 

In fact, there’s actually a whole name for these kinds of sweet spots: the third place. 

They might not look like much on paper (unless you get an heirloom album made, in which case, they definitely do).

But they’re where your kids are growing up, one day at a time. 

And when you start thinking about family photo session ideas through that lens— not ‘what’s pretty,’ but ‘what’s already ours’— we shift from choosing a backdrop to selecting a place that already knows your story. And pretty darn well, at that. 

The Coffee Shop + Record Store Duo

(AKA, the place where you’ve become regulars)

You know the one, where you walk in and your body decides what to do before your brain gets with the program.

One of you ends up at the coffee shop counter, catching the barista up on the kiddos’ latest ventures. The other somehow drifts toward the records—”just for a second, just to look” —which, of course, turns into a whole situation.

There’s usually a moment where you realize you’re holding too many things at once: coffee, a diaper bag that doubles as a dumbbell, a baby who has very strong opinions about how they are being held.

And then, like clockwork, there’s The Window. 

It’s not even a particularly remarkable window, but to a baby it might as well be a full cinematic experience. Two hands pressed up against the glass, a full-body lean while rocking a cooler outfit than I’ll ever wear (shout out to Vanessa, my personal stylist for family sessions), completely locked in on whatever movement is happening outside, even though something perfectly good is happening in here. 

This is one of those family photo session ideas where nothing has to be invented, because your life already knows how to exist here. 

You’re not stepping into something new. You’re just letting it be seen. 

And one day—when your weekends look different —you’ll catch yourself saying, “Oh my gosh, we used to go there all the time!” Who knows, by the time you’ve traded it for tee-ball tournaments, it might not even be there anymore.

Something tells me you’ll be so glad you have something (read: documentary-style photos of your once-upon-a-yesterday third place) that proves it meant something to your family.

Your Own Home 

(AKA, okay, yes, not technically a third place, but stay with me)

I know, I know. Your home is not technically a third place by definition. It is, quite literally… the first place.

But, stay with me here.

When you’re in the thick of raising kids, your home starts to function like something else entirely. It becomes the backdrop for literally everything: your second-nature routines as a busy mama, your SOS-sort-of chaos, your sweet and suspiciously quiet moments, your “how is it only 3pm?!” afternoons.

There’s that one stretch of the house where little legs move the fastest. Usually a hallway, for reasons that are unclear to everyone involved.

There’s always something on the floor that does not belong there— a sock, a toy, something mysterious that you choose not to investigate too closely.

And there’s almost always a moment where you’re holding one child while answering an oddly existential question from another, like having a thirty-seven track mind is a completely reasonable way to operate as a human being.

That right there? That’s home. You created that for them.

And before you spiral… no, it does not need to be cleaner.

I say this with love: your kids do not remember how tidy your house was. (One more time for the parents in the back?)

Your children remember how home felt. They remember being picked up, being swung around, being exactly where they wanted to be— right next to you.

Some of the most meaningful family photo session ideas live right here, in the parts of your day you don’t think twice about (and often in the stir-crazy Vermont winters where you could use a little extra excitement).

And I know it doesn’t feel important right now.

It feels like a Tuesday. A long one. Possibly with a princess costume crisis. 

But one day, this version of your home will be gone. It will be quieter. Cleaner. A little too calm, if we’re being honest.

And you will miss it in a way that feels a little bit at odds with how chaotic it felt at the time.

The Garden and Chicken Coop

(AKA, the third place you built right in your own backyard)

This one doesn’t seem like anything special, not at first, anyway. 

You go out there because something needs to be done—the garden needs tending, the coop needs checking, the eggs are not going to collect themselves no matter how much you will them to.

And your kids come with you, often times carrying something that’s slightly too big for their itty bitty arms, but they’re committed now, so everyone else is, too.

There’s always a moment where they stop you for something entirely unnecessary: an ant, a rock, something they’ve decided matters very much and must be acknowledged immediately.

There’s dirt. There’s movement. There is not a single clean place to stand.

And yet, this is where so much is happening.

This is where their little minds learn that things take time, that things need care, that not everything works just because you want it to. 

From a Vermont family photography standpoint, this is one of the most underrated family photo session ideas, because no one is asking what to do.

You’re already doing it— mostly out of sheer necessity. 

And the repetition of it—the returning to the same place, again and again—is what gives it emotional weight when you’re looking back at those photos, fifteen years down the line. 

Your Future Third Place

(AKA, the one your baby already unknowingly belongs to)

And then there are the places that don’t fully exist yet. At least, not in the way they will, soon.

A piece of family land. Trees that have been there longer than you have. A stream that reminds you that you have to pee… again. 

You find yourself standing there with your hand resting on the place where you’re growing a whole human life, like your body got there before your thoughts did, and it’s serene in that very specific Vermont way.

You can already see it, can’t you?

A small cabin. A woodstove going before the coffee’s ready. A child learning to walk across the same ground you grew up on, turning over rocks, building something out of snow that is, frankly, far too ambitious at the ripe age of three.

Your baby isn’t here yet. But they already belong here.

That’s what makes maternity sessions like this one— full of legacy before you’ve even gotten to the beginning, officially speaking— so darn moving. You’re standing in the before, right on the edge of everything changing, and you still having a second to notice it.

Still looking for your third place?

(AKA, a few family photo session ideas to borrow, for now)

If you’re reading this and thinking, “I don’t think we even have one of these third place things yet?” 

Believe me, you do. It just might not have introduced itself yet.

Some of my favorite family photo session ideas start as nothing but a what if we just… kind of thought.

• What if we just… rented a camper van for the afternoon and let the kids climb in and out of it like it’s their full-time job?
• What if we just… set up paints or clay at the kitchen table and simply accepted whatever chaos followed?
• What if we just… spent a slow morning at the farmer’s market, tasting everything we lay our eyes on just because we can?
• What if we just… went to the library and let them pick books they absolutely cannot read yet but feel very strongly about?
• What if we just… threw a blanket in the backyard for an outdoor movie that no one fully watches because the fireflies make for far better entertainment?

A third place doesn’t need to be permanent to matter.

In fact, more often than not, it’s something you create in real time. Sometimes, it’s just a pocket of a day you decided was worth remembering.

And your kids won’t know the difference. They’ll just remember that you were there.

If you want to understand just how much that matters, I wrote more about it here.