I spend a lot of my life as a documentary family photographer telling other people that their everyday is worth documenting.

Everydays with slices of watermelon follow you from room to room because it’s the hyperfixation snack of the summer. Everydays with kids sitting in the dirt for an unreasonable amount of time (no such thing), fully committed to a task no one else could possibly understand. Everydays with the hour before bedtime that you can always count on to unfold a little bit the same— dishwater light seeping in the kitchen window and tired eyes giving ‘but I’m not tired!’ kids away. 

I talk about capturing love and the living of it all the time— usually while standing in a client’s kitchen, stepping over a toy, and watching something completely unremarkable-turned-remarkable happen in front of my camera lens.

But I finally had to stop and ask myself: “Am I actually living like I believe that? Or am I just really good at saying it out loud?”

I Guess Documentary Photography Isn’t Just For Clients

If I believe your life is worth remembering exactly as it is—mid-chaos, mid-snack, mid-season you didn’t even realize you were in (and I do!)—then it would be a little strange not to believe the same about mine.

And about my son’s.

As a documentary family photographer, I spend a lot of time watching other people notice their lives in hindsight, watching them realize that the photos they love most aren’t the obvious ones but the ones that feel like something that came dangerously close to being lost to time.

(Which is a slightly unsettling realization, if you give it more than a second of a thought.)

And it turns out, that happens just as easily in my own house— a place where there’s no question memory lives.

The Photos No One Hires a Documentary Family Photographer For

So this is the work no one is hiring me for.

My son in the yard, wearing the same boots he insists on regardless of the weather, crouched over his latest mud discovery like his life depends on it. 

The way he’s starting to hold himself just like his dad and grandpa, even though he’s barely just learned how to properly negotiate with gravity.

The chicken coop my husband built, then nothing but a few wooden beams and a pipe dream and now the place where ‘the ladies’ run.

My pups pacing the same loop they always do, stopping just long enough to make eye contact before continuing on like they have somewhere much better to be.

Winter, when everything feels stripped back and a little more solemn than you expected. Summer, when the days get away from you and suddenly it’s 8:30pm and no one has eaten anything even remotely resembling dinner.

Maybe none of this felt particularly noteworthy while I was in it. 

In fact, perhaps there was really no reason to take the picture at all, other than the fact that in every instance I could feel— ever so faintly— that this was something I was going to want later.

And that feeling was enough. Enough for me to press my finger down on the shutter. Enough, sometimes, for me to even turn the camera around and catch myself living it, too.

What You Start to Notice When You Photograph Your Own Life

When I started photographing my own life the same way I photograph other people’s, I became acutely aware of the things that seem almost (almost!) unnecessary to notice. 

The way my son postures himself next to my husband, already subconsciously trying desperately to be just like him. How he baby-handles a watermelon slice that’s far too big for his hands. The way he moves through the same space differently depending on the day (and the amount of sleep he got): faster, slower, like he knows exactly what he’s doing, like he has absolutely no idea. 

None of it feels especially significant when you’re in it. But it is.

In an unsuspecting, slightly unfair way because that’s just how time rolls. 

Personal Work Keeps Me Honest as a Documentary Photographer

And if I’m being honest, capturing my own life on film has kept me from overcomplicating things in my work with clients. That reminds me I don’t really have time to reinvent the wheel.

When I’m documenting for personal reasons, more often than not, I’m shooting one-handed— in the middle of making dinner or balancing my fifteen different journals— because the light shifted or my son’s face arranged itself into an expression I’d never seen before. And I know full well it won’t last.

And yet, sometimes I try to kid myself that it will. Last, I mean.

I have to decide, in real time, if I trust the way time works enough to press the shutter or not.

Some days I do. Some days I hesitate and miss it.

Either way, it’s about as good of a reminder as I’ll ever get that most of what I’m drawn to as a documentary family photographer doesn’t wait around to be arranged.

What a Documentary Family Photographer Is Actually Looking For

So when I show up to photograph your life, I’m not looking for something extraordinary.

I’m looking for this.

The way a diaper sags on a hot summer day. The way you reach for your littles without thinking about it, while carrying on a conversation and juggling a mental to do list as long as your arm. The way your house holds all of it together, even when it feels like it’s barely getting by— which, for the record, is more than enough.

The things you’re in the middle of, without realizing you’re in the middle of them.

Why I Keep Taking These Photos

Yes, I do this work for other people— for their love and the living of it.

But I also do it because I know how easy it is to miss your own life while you’re in it. To assume you’ll remember. To assume it will stick. To assume it will feel this vivid later.

And, as sad as it is, it very often— more often than not, in fact— won’t. Not without something to hold onto, anyway.

Maybe that’s the closest I can get to saying it: I take these photos—the ones no one hired me for—for the same reason I take yours.

Because I’ve seen what happens when you don’t.