Today Sonja Stich based in Barcelona, Spain is sharing her documentary family photography point of view along with her photographs:
Over the years, both in my private life and in my work, I have scraped off some layers of civilization. In order to live closer to the core of myself as a human being, I’ve basically eliminated more and more things from my life that used to be important to me.
I gave up my work as a graphic designer because the focus on beautiful packaging repelled me more and more. Our family moved from the city to a village, for the children to grow up with less concrete, emissions, noise and consumption. We resigned from the cultural offer and comfort of the city.
Here, we see our food grow, we walk barefoot all summer day long, we are closer to life.
This is exactly what I love about documentary photography. When I take pictures of my family and friends, I do not want false smiles or forced touches, no beautiful clothes or houses to represent an image, no poppy fields and sunsets to evoke emotion.
No, I want to photograph people as I experience them when I do not have a camera with me.
Being in contact with nature has become essential to me. While a young designer, I thought that one could spend a whole adult life in offices, museums and cafés. Now I can no longer imagine a life without daily contact with the elements, plants and animals. To use flowers or pets as requisites for photos seems ridiculous to me.
It makes me happy to see how naturally my children interact with nature. And how our baker experiments with different cereals. How our friends and family gather to celebrate traditional festivals and make big fires. How our children are surrounded by plants, animals, music and real emotions.
This is what I want to document. If, someday, my children should forget that they are part of the whole, that humans are not separate from nature and other humans, how beneficial real laughter and heartfelt touches are, or how little you need to be happy, my photos hopefully will remind them.
