It’s 2025, and Simplicity is Making a Comeback

We love nostalgia. There’s no way around it. And especially right now, while the world is… well, I don’t really have a great word for it, let’s use “bonkers”… it’s nice to look back at the way things used to be. Simpler times. Maybe a time before we were all addicted to our phones, and every headline was clickbait, for example. The time when the only home video you could take was on a big old bulky video camera, the kind your kids would say came from the “olden days”.

But every trend comes back around – I mean, look at flare leg jeans. They’re back. And so are low-rise jeans… which… I feel less amazing about, but that’s beside the point. What I’m getting at here, is before we had smart phones in our pockets, we had home video. And it was so special, and simple, and disjointed in a way that the video we take on our iphones will never be.

There’s a Lot That Goes into Video These Days

And now, instead of living in a world where video was going to be weird and disjointed no matter what, we live in one where you can make a selfie move by uploading it into some AI generator from your phone in your car. But it also means we’ve got about a million apps for editing video (and even more for photos) that make life look… well… not really like life anymore.

To make matters worse, a lot of the time if we’re filming on our phones, that’s actually already going to be auto-adjusted by internal filters that we don’t even choose. So we’re starting from edited footage, that isn’t like life, and we’re feeding it into all the apps on the planet, and clipping and cutting and adjusting endlessly until we have something perfect to post on Instagram.

Home Video Might not be on Your Radar Anymore

So honestly in this moment, “home video” might not even be on your radar anymore. And given the tech we have now, and the way it works, with those built-in filters and auto-sharpening, it’s not the most straightforward thing in the world to even TRY to capture “home-video” like we did back in the day. Because logistically speaking, it’s not the “easy” option anymore.

It feels like a project, because it is! Pulling out your dad’s old camera, trying to get it to connect to any of our 2025 tech – ordering dongles on Amazon at 2am, deciphering the faded 1980’s-era ink telling you what connection type the cable is… And you know the manual is long gone, so that’s no use. So given all that… it makes sense that maybe home-video style documentation of your family just… isn’t on your radar anymore.

Being Able to Look Back on Moving Pictures is Amazing

But what if I told you there was another way? That you can have nostalgic feeling home-video-style memories to look back on without having to work around the limitations of how “perfect” footage from your smart phone can feel? And without having to download a million apps, just to figure out which ones are going to let you export the video without a watermark on it?

If you didn’t see this coming, there IS a way. It’s called “moving pictures” and it’s an add-on you can pop onto nearly any family style session here at Jessica Strobel Photography! And yes, that includes seniors, maternity, and newborn, too! It sits in the sweet spot between photos and video – little snippets of the magic of your family here in the studio, or out in the world wherever we host your session. Then our team pulls them together into a “moving picture” – not quite fully home-video, but not a documentary view of your day either.

Photo Sessions Let you See Yourself Through a Photographers’ Eyes…

On top of being a magical memory you get to look back on with real movement – because you’re not the one behind the camera, there are parts of “moving pictures” that are even better than what you’d get with that old camcorder in your attic.

Firstly, you get to actually be IN the footage, instead of being the one taking it! That’s a huge one, because it’s the biggest flaw in the home videos your dad took back in the day, right? He took them – he documented you, and your family – but he wasn’t IN those videos. Which means when you’re looking back, you get to see the things YOU did, and hear his voice, but you don’t get to SEE him. And although that absolutely has its own kind of magic, it’s a DIFFERENT kind of magic.

Second, when you work with Jessica Strobel Photography for your “moving pictures,” although we’re not aiming for perfection (because that would undercut the nostalgia!!) you DO get the benefit of the parts of our artistry we can’t turn off. No matter what, we can’t stop being professional photographers. Which means we can’t turn off our artist’s perspective!

So not only are you going to leave with gorgeous photos of your family, you’re also going to get video with the way your daughter looks up at you. The way your son’s eyebrows scrunch, in real time, as he smiles and laughs at a silly dad joke. But through the eyes of a photographer – which is a wholly different perspective!

Thinking About Adding Video to Your Family Photos?

Moving pictures are amazing. They’re a window into your family, in a way that static photos can’t ever be – because it’s apples and oranges, really. So if you’re looking for both apples AND oranges after your session, and you want photos AND video of your family experiencing the magic, let me know! I would love to add a moving picture onto your upcoming family session here in the studio, so you can remember the details IN MOTION, too.