In-home photos are magical: the ache and the art.

I write a lot on the blog about capturing everyday moments and how seemingly small they are at the time, but how extraordinarily big they feel later on.  It's just because it's simply so true. 

I made yet another photo book this week, emptying my phone of it's digital contents in order to create a book that almost felt like a really good daydream.  We are the tellers of our stories and if we let our phones and computers have all the glory, what then is left of us and have we silenced our hallelujahs for the way spring has once again come, beauty truly coming from ashes? 

To me, it's not about holding the phone up so often we replace our natural eyes with digital ones.  When I pick up my phone or camera it's with intention, because some sliver of life or light or laughter has dared me to not look away and rush on with my day.  The moment has prompted the photo, not me demanding that all of life be a photo shoot.  

I especially adore photos taken in my home.  As I look back over memories made in our house the photos make my heart ache, in the best possible way.  This is my compass, my criteria to tell if I am listening to my true north.  Does my heart ache with the loveliness of a memory?  If so, my eyes and camera and heart are serving me well.  

Am I just snapping here and there to fill up another blog post?  I've learned not to, because where the ache isn't, the art isn't either. 

I've been asked several times just this week if I'm still taking on photo sessions. My quick answer is "yes!".  I have a heart divided between farm sessions and in-home sessions.  You've heard me babble on about our farm plenty because it is just SUCH a playground of wonder.  

 But I want to gently remind you of the beauty of an in-home session.  These sessions are where I enter into your home and let the natural rhythm and routine of your family happen, with me there to capture it, camera in hand.  This can be a Saturday morning with kiddos in jammies and mom and dad drinking coffee.   It can mean capturing the favorite breakfast you share together, the natural laughs and looks, the stacks of favorite books. Or maybe a Sunday evening meal, as you wind down from the weekend and prepare for another week. 

 The lunch boxes on the counter, the flowers shared, the light in the kitchen...

these are all something your heart will treasure. 

I certainly adore and believe in farm sessions, whole-heartedly! 

But there is something truly magical about letting your family be captured in the sanctuary of your home.  I've often heard people say their house is too messy for this or their routine too simple.  But don't you see? The messy is the marvelous for it is proof of the richness of LIFE that is filling your home.  Your simple routine?  It's your literal life story, and years later (or even one year later), I bet you'll look back on this season with a sense of ache, knowing that it was art that was captured. 

We get this one life, with these special people we call family and friends. 

We don't get to take back moments and memories and milestones. 

I think that makes our days worth capturing. 

I urge you to capture your own days through the eyes of art, 

or you can read more about booking an in-home photo session with me here.