Documentary Family Photographer based in Ocean City, NJ

December 9, 2020

The Visual Time Capsule: A Beginners’ Guide to Documenting Daily Life

In a year that has been arguably the most difficult of our lifetimes, we have all been forced to turn inward, to our homes and our families, a dramatic shift from living in the outside world. My work has certainly changed, as major projects have been placed on the back burner and my client work has been nearly zero. It has forced me to be more creative within my four walls, which is even trickier now that I have teenagers who occasionally flip me the bird while shooting (their direct method of letting me know they’re not participating). Who knows? Maybe I’ll publish a book of all those images one day.

I found my way into photography sort of by accident. I don’t have a degree in photography and I don’t consider myself to be particularly artistic or creative. Rather, I felt the passage of time going faster and faster as my kids were getting older and I wanted a way to preserve that. And since my kids moved through the day like three tornados, posed images were not an option. I just started taking photos of them being themselves and enrolled in workshops related to documentary photography. What I have now is a curated collection of images that share my perspective as their mother. It sounds simple, but to me, it’s the most beautiful gift I can share with them. Although it took an effort to organize, each of them has a box of printed images that are added to as time passes, images of vacations, adventures, holidays, and family gatherings, but the most precious to me are the ones of our everyday life.

I recently watched a 2005 documentary of legendary photographer Sally Mann, who used the word “quotidian” to describe the inspiration for her work, which I just love.

Inspiration and meaning for me come directly from quotidian life, a mundane experience that has beauty and nuance, if you know how to look for it.

As we round out 2020 and reflect on everything this year has meant, both good and bad, I wanted to share a series of words + photographs that are meant to show how anyone can document everyday life, with practical information that anyone can use as well as encouragement to look beyond what may feel quotidian to explore meaning, beauty, and love . . . even if the times feel dark and lonely.

Start with Why

The “why” is the greatest driver of the choices we make and the actions we take. Without a doubt, my greatest “why” has been motherhood. My desire to photograph is rooted in my desire to document my experience as a mother. My images reflect how I see the world, and more importantly, how I feel as a mother and the love I have for my children. When they were small, I felt like I blinked and they were all suddenly a year older. The enigma of time is a strange one. The days drag on but the years fly by. Here we are, 10 months into a global pandemic, and I can’t even watch TV without a physical reaction to seeing people hugging in a crowded bar without masks. Everything has changed. In a small way, I became aware of the shifts that came with the passage of time by watching my kids grow up. I wanted to hold onto that, so I began to commit myself to documenting my everyday life.

I used to laugh when we’d be walking as a family and I would try to run up ahead of my kidsso that I could turn around with my camera and take photos of them walking together. When I would turn around, they’d be at my heels, running after me, like a bunch of ducklings following right behind. So I started taking photos of them looking up at me. They weren’t perfect images, whatsoever. But now, those eyes that were once looking up at me are beginning to look down on me, because he’s taller than I am.

For better or worse, life keeps moving forward. And it’s worth documenting. In this weekly series (over the next four weeks), I’ll share simple ways to document everyday life, improve the quality of personal images, ways to find inspiration, and organize prints as keepsakes.

If there is any specific topic you’d like me to include or questions you might have, please comment or email me at hello@laurengayeski.com. I ‘d love to hear from you!

October 21, 2020

An October Afternoon

While planning our phone call for our pre-session consultation, this mom mentioned that her family would be close to home as they were potty training their daughter. Although potty training is far behind me in the stages of parenting, it’s an experience that isn’t soon forgotten. I have a whole host of stories about potty training my own kids that would make my them blush as teenagers (so I will spare you the details). The only advice that I have to give is this: no child begins or ends that stage in the same way as another child. Jelly beans and sticker charts work for some, while others will laugh in your face. Some refuse to even look at a public potty, while some don’t care where they park their cheeks. Parenting is messy, and there is a good reason why Clorox makes a bleach commercial with a story of potty training.

It might seem ridiculous that “potty training” was something I jotted down in my notes about this family, but I think this stage of childhood says so much about what’s happening in the life of a family with a child that age. To me, it means books and snacks and stickers and make believe and lots and lots of questions, a curiosity that cannot be satisfied. To kids at this age, the world is so wide open and full of so many fun things, like neighborhood fall decorations and cracks in the sidewalk. There are books and toys and favorite stuffed animals, and for this little one, there is lots and lots of pink (her favorite color). She told me her favorite jokes and wasn’t afraid to swing high on her swing set. And while she was swinging, she requested her mom read to her. She read books on the bed, on the swing, and yes, while she was on the potty.

The thing about stages in parenting is that we feel like they will go on forever. But, they don’t. Kids grow up and we grow with them. My life is so different than it was when I was potty training and reading picture books and hearing made up jokes that I had to fake a laugh at in order to play along. It’s a stage that’s physically and mentally exhausting, one that I frequently miss, and one that is worth documenting.

August 19, 2020

Beach Morning in the Life of the S Family

It’s wild to think that just a few weeks remain in the summer of 2020, one that we’ll never forget. We are so lucky to be able to live by the beach, so that even in the “Pandemic Summer,” we can still be outside, socially distance, and allow ourselves to enjoy time as a family. Our friends reached out and asked me to document a Saturday morning with them and their son, who just turned two. As August is, the weather looked iffy on this particular day, but we decided to take a chance. When I arrived at their house, I could hear their son babbling on the monitor and as soon as they got him out of his crib, he was ready to play, read, eat his breakfast, wander outside with his dad (and wave to the passing boats!), ride on a bike with his mom, watch the bulldozers clean up the beach, and splash in the waves. It’s been a summer to remember, one worth documenting.

July 10, 2020

A Quarantine Wedding: Love Conquers All

The pandemic has caused a whole lot of upheaval in every single human being’s earthy existence, adjusting all of our expectations, plans, and routines, throwing the world into chaos and shifting our worries from small things to things that seemed impossibly big and terrifying. And inside of that, many couples have been forced to make difficult decisions around the most IMPORTANT day of their lives: a wedding. Way back before Covid-19 was even a word in the lexicon of our current everyday world, Madison + Zach asked me to photograph their wedding set for May. Madison is a girl with the biggest heart, a talent for creating beauty with her hands at embroidery, and leading my boys on many an adventure and making movies with them over one magical summer when she was their babysitter (many of which involved her playing several roles, most of which involved drawn on mustaches with magic marker) while Zach is a talented musician and graphic designer. I knew their wedding would be creative, intimate, and personal, but I could never imaged at our first conversation how those three things would be critical to pulling off a wedding in a pandemic and quarantine. At the time of their wedding, our state was limiting in person gatherings to just 10 people, which ended up including the bride and groom and their immediate families (the ceremony was performed by her dad, a Pastor). While 2020 hasn’t handed us the greatest lot, the technology of today allowed Zach and Madison to livestream their wedding t

o their family and friends, many of whom were several states away. And at the end of the night, cars lined up as a “receiving line” of sorts to throw rice, hand flowers and gifts, and even dance at a distance, while cupcakes were handed out to their “guests.” It was hard for me to hold back tears at their ceremony, not only because I know and adore these two people, but because of how they made this day about one thing: a commitment to one another in love, despite the circumstances. And that is the most beautiful thing of all.

Thank you so much, Madison and Zach for including me in your day!! Click here to find Madison on Etsy and Instagram, and Zach’s music, design, and Instagram.

June 29, 2020

Moving Day

Three weeks ago, we moved. We sold a house we loved, one we lived in for 13 years and the only home our boys can ever remember. A house full of memories of holidays, family, firsts (first steps! first days of school! first lost tooth!), and over time, it became a place of lasts. Last time in car seats, last time I carried my boys to their beds, and now, the last of elementary school. It’s been 13 beautiful years and some really (REALLY) tough growing pains happened in between these walls. I wouldn’t change them for anything, and so it has felt so incredibly bittersweet saying goodbye to one chapter and beginning another. Our new house is less than half the size. We just felt like it was time to simplify, downsize, and minimize our possessions . . . because once I start to sort through all the crap accumulated in a house over 13 years of life, it became clear that we owned too many things, held onto too many preschool craft projects, and needed to reduce our tendency to accumulate rather than curate what we loved and things that were most important.

With our oldest heading to high school next year and our boys being at the point where they are more and more independent every day, it felt like this huge shift in our life. Then, as we were trying to sell our house, the pandemic hit. Suddenly, our house plans seemed to be falling through our hands. Fortunately, a lovely family (with three girls!) fell in love with our house. I know it sounds silly, but I had been praying for the family who bought our house more than six months prior to the actual closing. I couldn’t imagine a better family to create their own memories in the house I have loved so much.

It was hard to leave, and my boys were as sentimental about it as I was. So on the day when the moving truck came (and Dave had to work) it felt extra bittersweet, like a lump in my throat pushing back a good cry as I saw the rooms emptied out of the life we had put into it. It felt empty and so sad. The first night in the new house, I just kept thinking I wish I was home and panicked that we made the wrong decision. But a few days later, when we filled our new bookcases with all of the books and treasures we love so much, Jackson said, Wow, it feels like ours now because a house is just a house, but home is where your treasures are.

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