In-Home or Outdoor Family Photos in St. Louis? A Family Photographer’s Honest Answer

Should we do our family photos indoors or outdoors? It’s one of the questions I hear most, and my honest answer might surprise you: it depends on the story you want to tell.

As a St. Louis family, motherhood, and newborn photographer, I specialize in in-home sessions, but not just in-home. I specialize in sessions that feel like home. What does that even mean? It means sessions that are meaningful to your family story, wherever that story happens to live.

So let’s break it down, session by session, and talk about what might be right for you.

Newborn Sessions: Starting at Home

When it comes to newborn sessions, it’s as simple as asking: what story do you want to tell about your new baby?

Some families want a studio session, but I offer in-home lifestyle and documentary newborn sessions, and I truly believe home is the best place for them. Everyone is most comfortable there, especially if you’re early postpartum. You don’t have to pack up a newborn and worry about getting out the door on time. You have everything you need. You can relax.

If your baby arrives in the middle of winter or a gray March, home is the obvious answer. But that doesn’t mean we can’t step outside. Bundle your newborn up, step onto the porch, even with snow on the ground, and we’ll capture the story of a baby who came home in winter. How beautiful is that? Then we step right back inside and get warm.

And if your baby arrives in spring or summer, we can start at home and then take a walk. Put the baby in a stroller or carrier and stroll your neighborhood, visit the park nearby if you have a toddler, or even end the session getting ice cream somewhere you go often, somewhere that already means something to your family.

Family Sessions: Telling Your Family Story

I specialize in family sessions that tell your family story. I don’t want to go to the park just because it’s pretty and have your photos look like everybody else’s.

So my process starts with really getting to know you. I’ll ask questions like:

• What are the things you do together as a family?
• What are your daily rhythms?
• What are your kids really into right now?
• What is your family story in this season?

That’s the beauty of it: you could have a session every year and they could all look different, because families are always changing and children are always growing.

Maybe your child loves one park and you go there every Saturday. Let’s go there, play on the playground, and catch the beautiful light by that favorite tree. Maybe your family loves the coffee shop around the corner. Let’s take photos there. My family sessions are long enough that sometimes we can even do two locations, starting in the comfort and beauty of your own home, where so many of your memories live, and ending somewhere that matters to you.

One Session, Inside and Out: A Real St. Louis Family Story

Let me tell you about one family whose session was both.

We started at their home. It was their first home and their first baby, and it held so much meaning. Hanging in the window of their family room was a stained glass panel. It had once been part of the door of the mother’s childhood home, and when that door came down, they turned it into this piece of art. At golden hour, the light poured through it. We captured their hands, their snuggles, their kisses on the baby, all with the glow of that stained glass behind them. What great meaning.

This mom is also an artist. On the wall hung three pieces in a row: her own paintings on either side, and in the middle, a drawing by her mother. We photographed her up close, looking at that art with her baby in her arms. Three generations in one frame.

Then we moved into their bedroom. To me, the bedroom is such an intimate and sacred space, the place where a family snuggles and sleeps. Their dogs were on the bed and the baby was crawling between them. And at the foot of the bed sat an antique trunk. Family legend says it belonged to her great-great-grandfather and went with him to war. So we took the baby’s 10-month portraits right there, his little feet on the trunk, him sitting on top of it.

But this family’s story doesn’t stop at their front door. Every day, they walk their dogs at a quiet, secret little spot in Forest Park, just five minutes from home. So we took photos in front of their house, on their street, among the flowers where they walk. Then we hopped in our cars, drove five minutes, and ended the session in beautiful evening light on the very path they walk every day.

Indoor or outdoor? For this family, the answer was both.

Beyond Home: Places That Hold Your Story

My favorite place for a family session will always be your home. But that doesn’t mean your photos always have to happen there. Maybe it’s a different place that holds great meaning for you, and that’s where we’ll go. There are a million stories that can be told, inside and out, all year round.

Maybe your family loves books. We could spend your session at a local bookstore like The Novel Neighbor in Webster Groves, where the shelves bring layers, depth, and color to every frame. As a documentary lifestyle photographer, I’d capture you reading to your children and turning pages together.

Or maybe it’s a mommy-and-me session at the library. St. Louis County Library has wonderful spaces, and the St. Louis Public Library’s Central Library downtown is absolutely stunning, with historic architecture, grand lighting, and sweeping staircases. I know the steps and who to reach out to for permission to photograph there, so you don’t have to.

Don’t Let Winter Keep You Inside

Photos don’t have to stay indoors just because it’s cold. One of my all-time favorite sessions was an engagement session in the snow, at the very park where he proposed.

It was the middle of winter. They wore snow boots, bundled up in beautiful layered coats and knit caps, and all that texture made the photos so rich. They snuggled up, ran around in the snow, and stamped a heart into it with their feet.

There are so many ways to layer up, bring blankets, and stay cozy, and winter light can be so beautiful. Cold doesn’t have to mean canceled.

So, Indoor or Outdoor?

You might think your family photos have to happen at the same St. Louis park as everybody else’s because it looks pretty. That just isn’t true.

The real question isn’t indoor versus outdoor, or in-home versus a location. The real question is: what is the story you want to tell? What holds great meaning for you and your family right now?

Let’s choose your location because it means something, not because it’s convenient. Whether that’s your living room, your bedroom, your favorite trail, or the library down the street, I’ll guide you to it. That’s the story I want to tell, inside or out.

I would be honored to tell your story. Reach out to book, and let’s start with a conversation about the moments that matter most to you.