shiny hot dog legs

i never need an excuse to fall in love with people, wholeheartedly, at first sight (just ask my husbanndd) and i realize it sounds cheesy but cliches are true for a thousand good reasons. i loved this family in .02 seconds. but i want to dig into the heart and guts of WHY.

secret: one of my favorite things about photographing families is the excuse i have to spy on them for a couple hours.
because i’ve shared many times before that family life is the hardest thing I’ve ever, ever done. leaps and bounds above anything else. it is work that is never complete–and while that feels beautiful in my artistic pursuits sometimes it gets buried in my work as a mother. also, mothering requires SO MANY things that i am straight up bad at. logistics and planning ahead and crazy heaps of patiently correcting and guiding with consistency. i’m working on them, and i see the shiny lining in the things i AM good at blending over into this work, but overall–gosh. i wonder insatiable how people do it. so spying on this family for a couple hours, seeing how they played together and handled the inevitable tantrums and I-NEED-HOT-DOGS-IMMEDIATELY and even a poo-mergency in the middle of a park with no bathrooms interlaced with the sparkly open-armed love they share and nurture–I left a genuinely better person. (which I realize sounds hilarious. it WAS hilarious. but that’s also the glory of this life we lead, right? That it’s all important and simultaneously very small, hilarious and gross and wonderful and holy? Yes, my friends, a big resounding YES. Keep saying yes to it all and unlocking oceans of joy for yourself.)

p.s. hey rad friend, thanks for reading and caring about these images. if you wanna be falled-in-love-with at first sight too, (appealing, right? I promise not to make it too creepy mccreepster) let’s make some photographs of you and the people you love most. contact me and i’ll send over all the deets for family sessions lightning fast.