Life is really full isn’t it?
You may have kids at multiple schools, you’re bouncing between the Colleyville Rec for Volleyball, Oak Grove for baseball and Bob Jones for Soccer, while you may be trying to work, manage a house, and all these people need to eat three times a day apparently. Or more if they eat snacks like my family does. Life is full (I am trying to avoid using the term busy because I don’t want to glorify it) and it is going really fast. Scheduling professional family photos can just feel like one more thing on your to-do list that never ends. But like I said, it is going really fast too. And the exact phase your family in won’t keep.
I photograph kids from babies to preschool to high school every day as a school photographer. I see how they change from year to year. I often joke with the kids at the schools that I go back to each year that I feel like their old aunt who just goes on and on about “how much they’ve grown since last year.” But it’s true! I am honored to watch these kids develop into awesome human beings. And when I get to see families grow from year to year it is even better.
When you are so close to someone it can be hard to see their growth.
I don’t see that my kids are growing until suddenly all of their pants come to mid-calf and I am adding the next size to my drive-up order. (I think the Target people know my car by now). But when my mom sees them, she automatically sees how much they’ve grown since her last trip from Houston to Grapevine. Photos do the same thing. When you make professional photos an annual tradition, you get to see the get to see that side-by-side comparison of how much your crew has grown in just a year. In all of that fullness of life, we miss the little growth until we get the chance to step back and look from a bird’s eye view.
Having someone else create these images for you who is certified in her knowledge of lighting, posing and editing allows you to not only be in the photos with your family, but to see your family as those who love you the most see you. And this is worth making time for every year. At least once a year you know you are going to have a touch point to your family’s story as it is being told.