A few days ago, on what turned out to be a rather rainy morning, I found myself looking around my home, thinking about ways to improve some of my décor choices and interior design touches. As I wandered from room to room, one particular detail stood out: every single framed photo I had on display was what you might call a “high-quality finish.” By that, I mean the images were technically perfect—no shadows, no distractions, nothing that pulled attention away from the main subject.
But that realisation sparked a thought. As lovely as those polished photos are, sometimes it would be even nicer to capture something a little more in the moment. Not the perfect shot, but the real one. The spontaneous image taken without preparation. Maybe it’s a friend laughing uncontrollably, someone beaming with emotion, or a split second of genuine joy before anyone even realises a camera is there. These aren’t staged or rehearsed—they’re tiny snapshots of real life happening right in front of you.
Finding Joy in the Unposed: A New Approach to Home Photography
And that made me think: how wonderful would it be to have some of those candid, authentic images printed and framed alongside the more polished ones already in place? They would add warmth, character, and a comforting sense of lived-in ambience to my home.
So, I asked myself—did I actually have many of these kinds of photos stored away? The answer was that I had a few… but nowhere near as many as I should have had, or as many as I’d now like to have.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve been taking far more of these candid shots—not just of people, but of all sorts of everyday subjects. A dog tilting its head with curiosity, a bus splashing past in the rain, a single leaf drifting down from a tree… small, fleeting moments that I might normally overlook. I have to say, I’m genuinely impressed with some of the photos I’ve captured, and I was excited to frame them and place them around my home. I was equally eager to see how my family and friends would react to these new additions.
My plan going forward is to continue taking these spontaneous, real-life shots and keep mixing them with my more polished images. Every couple of months, I will place new images into the frames. Some will be the candid ones, others the more polished photos. This way, it will help to keep things looking fresh and interesting. I am also planning to change the picture frames that the images are housed in from time to time for the same reason.
In a world where social media plays such a prominent role, and where people often portray a highly polished version of themselves—one that isn’t always true to real life—I think there’s something refreshing and deeply charming about everyday images captured in real time. Photos that aren’t posed, that aren’t perfect, that aren’t filtered within an inch of their lives. They feel sincere, unpretentious, and honest.