Father Captures Carefree Childhood at Its Best in Heartwarming B&W Photo Series
Everybody takes photos of their family, trying their best to keep a chronicle of their children as they grow up. They capture moments both mundane and momentous and store them away in what later becomes the family album (although it seems that might soon be a thing of the past).
But while everybody might make an effort to capture these memories, photographer Alain Laboile does so with an expertise behind the lens that has turned his own personal family album, a series called La Famille, into a heartwarming viral sensation.
It’s difficult to describe the series without falling into mushy hyperbole. The photos are touching, moving, heartwarming, pick your adjective. What allows for these to be so moving, however, is the skill with which they are captured.
It’s not that Laboile’s family has more touching moments than most. In fact, we’re willing to bet many of the fathers and mothers reading this will remember similar scenes that played out in their own families. It’s Laboile’s uncanny ability to make it seem as if the camera was never there in the first place that gives these photos the honesty required to really hit home.
Even the term candid seems to fall a bit short at times. Browsing thorough the photos, you simply feel as if you ARE him, watching his six children play and smiling at the innocence and simplicity of it all.
Here’s a selection of images from the series:
Laboile began the series in 2004, and has photographed his family day in and day out at their house in Gironde in the southwest of France ever since. He hopes to create something worth passing along to his children, while simultaneously creating a work of art others can appreciate:
Through my photographic work I celebrate and document my family life: a life on the edge of the world, where intemporality and the universality of childhood meet… My work reflects our way of life, revolving around their childhood. My photographs will be the testimony of that.
In a way my approach can be considered similar to the one of an ethnologist. Though my work is deeply personal, it is also accessible, addressing human nature and allowing the viewer to enter my world and reflect on their own childhoods.
Over the years, more and more photographs from this personal album have made it online, as Laboile picks both old and new photographs to put up via his social networks. To see more of the photos in the series, or if you’d like to keep up with Laboile as he shares more of the photos with the world, head over to his website or follow him on Facebook.
(via Feature Shoot)
Image credits: Photographs by Alain Laboile and used with permission
