Sham of the Perfect: 25 Honest, Beautiful Photos of Family Life

Children can be both a source of inspiration and a challenge for photographers. Especially when they’re your own kids, you may find yourself too busy to take pictures or experiment with other subjects and ideas.

For Erika Roa, Lacey Monroe and Natasha Kelly, the main problem with parenting was that it made their lives too chaotic for ‘perfect’, minimalist pictures. During a group project for an online photography course called Visual Storytelling, they shared their frustration at this standard of clean composition, which was difficult to achieve with a family. They’d all received criticism for having ‘messy’ photos, yet anything else would be inauthentic.

As Erika explains: “If our images had to be tidy, we’d never be able to shoot in our own homes, and if our homes were ever tidy enough to shoot in, then the images would seem completely dishonest years from now.”

Elisa Elliot

And so, the three mothers decided to reject the criticism and embrace the chaos. They created a photography project that not only accepted imperfection, but highlighted it as a window into real family life. They called it the “Sham of the Perfect.”

“We were tired of seeing photos that only show happy, smiling, clean children in immaculate interiors or sun-drenched fields during golden hour,” Lacey says. “We knew that was not what our lives looked like, and we thought there would be others out there who also yearned for more honest depictions of family life.”

Now, the project has over 15 steady contributors, as well as a vibrant community of photographers who regularly submit photos to their website. If their project resonates with you and you’d like to share your own honest, everyday moments, you can submit photos via their submissions page. Be sure to check out their blog, too, and be inspired by the peace and chaos of family life.

Lacey Monroe