We love in-home photography sessions. We, and many others, often refer to these as lifestyle sessions even though lifestyle photography sessions don't have to happen inside your home. Nevertheless, calling them lifestyle really gets to the heart of why these photos are so special. They are all about capturing what your life is like at that exact moment in time.

Imagine going back to re-live a day of your childhood. That is the power of a lifestyle photoshoot. And though it certainly isn't a requirement, we think any home and every home is the perfect place to create such an amazing gift. We wouldn't be surprised to hear you disagree though. In fact, the one comment we've heard the most since we started offering in-home lifestyle photography sessions is, "My house isn't nice enough for that."

We understand that feeling. As artists and designers ourselves, who also, since we were first married back in 2010, have only ever rented and never owned our own place, we've never been 100% in-love with everything about the way our home looks. Our last place had brick-red tiles across the entire main floor with stained grout. The whole space looked like the kitchen floor of a fast-food restaurant! It was definitely not the sort of look you see in most lifestyle photos on Pinterest. Still, we took plenty of pictures of our kids in that apartment and wouldn't trade them for anything.

Now, you might be thinking, "Sure, I can take pictures in my home but I wouldn't call them art". But what if we told you we believe you can have art that was made right in your home? Because we think in-home photo session are so special, we thought we'd put that belief to the test, on your behalf. We grabbed our gear, and, more importantly, our brains, and walked right into a couple rooms in our home to take some photos of our boys.

First stop—the boys' bedroom

Now, we're sort of putting ourselves out there, exposing our struggles as housekeepers and parents by revealing these pictures but they say honesty is the best policy and if this article is going to be of any value to you we think it's important to show how things really are.

We decided to start in our boys' bedroom for a couple of reasons. First, there is not a ton of space due to 3 boys sharing one room. Secondly, it is not really decorated. We have an off-cut of carpet that serves as a rug and light-beige walls. It doesn't really get more basic than that. Lastly, despite our regular encouragement, our boys usually have clothes lying all over the floor and the beds are never made which just makes it look like a poor candidate for a "photography room".

So, we walked in and, without changing anything, took the shot above. Then, we got to work and created this little set of images below that we love to death. Somehow, our youngest son, Charlie, ended up with two of these adorable bears which he totes around the house nearly all day long. His "teddies" rest on either side of him at night just like in these photos. Each of our boys has a quilt that they received as a gift from a loving relative and Charlie's has this colorful dotted underside which made for the perfect boy-bed accent.

We'd like to think these are the kind of images that any parent would be proud to have and display as art in their home. So don't write off a room in your home that appears too small or messy on the surface.

Last stop—the playroom

We're hoping that by now you can begin to see the potential to create amazing art in any area of your home but you might still be wondering, "I see what you did in that first room but what about my spaces without windows?" We hear you. So much of the in-home lifestyle photography we see has been captured in rooms with nice bright windows. We can't argue with that approach. It would be our first inclination as well. Still, we might take issue with those photographers that would write off rooms in your home that don't have windows or ask you to move around furniture to new and unusual places in order to utilize the window light.

That's why, for our last location we decided to head into the deepest recess of our home—the playroom. This room is in a basement with no windows. It isn't decorated and has pretty awful light. We're somewhat embarrassed to admit that it's a disaster zone most of the time but that's also because it's probably the place where our kids spend the most time (except the backyard but this article is about being in the home, right) and for that reason, it's probably one of the places we'd most like to remember.

These photos are made in the dark with long shutter speeds to show the motion of the flashlight being held by the boys. The boys' are 'frozen' in the photo by two off-camera flashes triggered remotely.

Now, we could've made an artificial window or balanced to the ambient light in the room or even just converted all the photos to black-and-white and while we don't necessarily have a problem with any of those approaches, we thought we'd demonstrate that with a little creativity, any space can be transformed into something completely new!

Our boys actually enjoyed this time so much that even days after we captured these photos, our 4-year-old, who usually has the strongest feelings against having his photo taken, was passionately asking if we could go to the basement to "draw lightning flashes and take the camera". If that isn't a photography win, we don't know what is!

Hopefully these few images have served to back us up when we say, your home is definitely right for an in-home photography session when you entrust yourself to an artist. Are you ready to create some art with us that you'll treasure forever?