document your life.
Growing up, my family didn’t take a lot of photos. I posses a limited selection of photographs in my personal collection. Two of my favorites are family portraits taken at JCPenney Studio and Olan Mills during the mid-1990’s (little JQ was just four and five years old). In one portrait, my arms are wrapped around my older brother’s neck, as I ever so carefully display a dainty pinky finger, with its fingernail holding on for dear life. I’m still not sure how I managed to deflect my parents’ attempts to remove it.
Why the lack of family photos you might ask? Striving for perfection. Perfection always seemed to be the goal, and our family photos never looked authentic. I remember being forced to choose my outfit from clothes I didn’t like, during a stressful shopping trip to the local mall, followed by a hectic period of preparation the day of the photo shoot (no one in our household was happy). I can hear my older brother’s dramatic eye roll typical of teenagers, as our mother questioned the photographer and made several suggestions on how best to capture her regal features. My father, calm and stoic, doing his best to just get through it. Our family portraits weren’t fun. At least not until I became a parent myself.
My husband and I began considering the idea of a family photography session following the birth of our third child. I remember capturing the moment our older children met their younger brother for the first time. My husband held our sweet newborn as his older siblings looked on in awe. I was behind the camera (a smartphone of course), but I wanted to be in the photos.
2022 was the year we began documenting our young family through annual, photography sessions with the talented, Leah Evans of Leah Evans Photography. I first came across Leah’s work through Instagram. I then ventured to her website, where I hurriedly submitted my contact information and completed a very thorough questionnaire, communicating our interest in a family session. Upon meeting Leah, I was incredibly comfortable. She asked many so many detailed questions about myself, our family, what makes us ‘us’, as well as our overall reason for wanting to do a family photography session. I simply wanted to be in the photos (easy enough to do with a professional photographer, right?), but I also wanted our family to be captured as we were in that very moment in time. Just our true, unedited, chaotic selves and nothing more.
Our first session with Leah was an hour-long, outdoor session. The golden hour on that fall day was exquisite, and thankfully the temperatures were comfortably mild. At the beginning of the session, Leah explained to our children (ages 6, 4, and 1) how we were going to play some fun games and take some pictures. Her enthusiasm alone was refreshing, as I was a bit nervous about how well the kids would behave (Would they listen? Have a meltdown? Did I pack enough snacks?). My nerves wore off quickly as the session started. The kids had so much fun, and I know their sweet smiles and facial expressions were captured with ease by Leah. She’s a professional, so I know that’s an understatement. That hours as family was the most low-key, yet energetic, photography session I had ever participated in. I don’t believe we were ever told to pose, but rather positioned and encouraged to just be ourselves. It was such a refreshing, eye-opening experience. I knew we would do it again.
I’m in no way one to scrapbook, but I can certainly organize a file folder on my external hard drive and frame prints to display in our home. I’m currently two years behind on updating the pictures ledges containing our family photos (life got busy and I haven’t been super motivated), but we have made it a tradition to take our family photos with Leah each fall. I’m in no way saying this sort of photography session is the only way to document your family, but I will say the investment is priceless. Of course, the photos we capture on our smartphones or cameras (I have an expensive one I have yet to master), are also helpful when it comes to documenting our history as a family. Our children love looking through photos, asking all the questions of who, what, where, when, how, why? That ‘why’ is the question they love to hear answered the most: “Why did you take this picture?” and my answer is always the same, ”I wanted to revisit this moment in time with ease”.
Our most recent, family session with Leah Evans of Leah Evans Photraphy