We were lucky to catch up with Elisa Pittella recently and have shared our conversation below.

Elisa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

​​I was drawn to documenting families because I have always been a truth seeker. Rather than taking standard, posed portraits of families, I photograph them just as they are during a typical day in their lives. Depicting realism in an artistic way. Completely unscripted. Documentary family photography offers a legacy for families and future generations, creating a family’s unique story, by capturing THEIR reality, just as they are.

Elisa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

At some point along my photography journey, I ventured into taking family photos with a more directed/posed, polished approach. You may call this a typical way of photographing families. Family portraits in matching outfits on a beach at sunset. Don’t get me wrong, this can be done so beautifully by many talented photographers and everyone has different likes and dislikes when it comes to photography. But, for me, something felt off or was missing. I then came across an image taken by someone who would become a very important mentor in my life, Kirsten Lewis. It was real. It was emotive. It made me FEEL something. It was depicting the reality of this family in their living room. Mom is exhausted and delirious, draped over a bay window where their dog is standing looking down at her. Dad is sitting on the couch: baby in his lap, with his head in his hands absolutely done and the two other children fill the scene with hilarity in this chaotic mess. I knew instantly that this is what my soul was drawn to. You want to feel something when you look at an image of your own family. Each person’s unique personality given a chance to be expressed in its natural way. Completely unposed and unscripted. My process captures families in an intentional and artistic way which in turn elevates the emotion and memory of the moment. You want to look at an image and remember the moment the bacon got burnt at breakfast and your child tenderly reaching out for a warm hug, while you’re trying to decide which to tend to first.

It has become clear to me just how important this is for families, their children and for future generations. I simply hang out with families during a typical day in their lives and photograph them just as they are, with all the mess, cries, tantrums, humor, silliness and the array of emotions that make us human. These sessions can last anywhere from 1 hour to 24 hours (the latter being my favorite). It requires a certain level of trust so as soon as I enter a family’s home I try to connect with them before pulling out my camera. The reason why these images become so important, apart from creating a legacy for the family, is because one day all of the integral moments of family life with young children will be gone and they will be all grown up. I offer a beautiful printed photo album of the final images that depict the story of a family. I can’t tell you how much it means to me when I hear back from a client telling me how many tears were shed looking at their photos. I often hear how grateful they are to actually be IN the photos, rather than being the ones taking them on their smartphones. Documentary family photography matters because I have been able to capture loved ones and pets where the timing of the photo session has been so perfectly aligned with their passing. These families have been incredibly grateful that such beautiful poignant images were captured prior to their loss.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Before moving to L.A, I was living in Melbourne, Australia. I had photographed many families and had built up quite a collection of work. Being the sensible human that I hope I am, I had all of my work backed up on two different external hard drives as well as on the cloud. One day I was home editing and had to step out and go to the store. I was only gone around 20 minutes. When I came home the life was sucked out of me as I saw my front door ajar and my home trashed. Not only did they take my iMac and all of my photographic equipment, they took my hard drives with my back ups too. And not only that, they also hacked into my email and reset my iCloud settings so that I could no longer retrieve anything on there. I was absolutely devastated. Essentially, I had to begin again and recreate an entirely new body of work. I somehow pulled myself together, after taking a few months off and started again, from scratch. I came to terms with accepting my reality. And this is what I want for the families I photograph. I want them to fall in love with their own reality and to appreciate the in between moments they hardly know exist until they view them in storytelling images.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

The goal for my creative journey, is to help families build a legacy for their children and future generations. I hope to show families just how beautiful their lives are, amidst all the chaos. And to do this in a creative and artistic way. Documentary family photography is quite cathartic. It connects family members to one another. It helps to show the love they have for one another and to realize just how special and unique each family member is. This is so much more meaningful to me personally than a family portrait where smiles are all that you see. It seems one dimensional. Documentary family photography is multi dimensional.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/elisapittellaphotography

Image Credits
The Murphys The Parmeles The Johnsons