Family photography is about milestones. And, somehow, I nearly overlooked 10 years of running Acorn and Oak Family Photography.
Milestones sneak up on you when you’re busy with the details of life that make those milestones so important to begin with.
The Early Years
What scared me most about family photo sessions was that I never had a plan.
There was no vision for the photo session, no creative ideas. My mind doesn't work like that. I would just pray that families would 'be themselves' and I could capture that.
Over time, photo sessions became adventures because I chose fun places to do the photos. A few minutes into the session, we'd all be lost in the moment - kids having fun, moms and dads laughing, me behind the camera.
If I carved space and time for those moments to happen - they always did. If there was a plan, it was to be so absorbed in the moment that everything else fades away.
The Hard Years
One session led to another until I could provide for my growing family doing work I loved.
Then something happened.
I just remember suddenly feeling so alone and depressed. Naomi wasn't herself anymore either.
We were living the entrepreneurial dream and watching it slowly dissolve into a nightmare.
Everything that should have given us meaning and happiness only psuhed us deeper into the dark.
I went to photo sessions feeling tragically depressed, not sure that I could even pull into the parking lot.
But I knew instinctively that I was doing something good for families - including my own.
The moment I met up with the family, the depression went away. Time stopped. Joy flowed. Moments happened.
It gave me hope that maybe I could bring my family out of depression, into adventure, and find our flow again.
Eventually, we did. It was only when we looked back that we could see what happened. Somehow, we missed every single sign of postpartum depression. We just thought we were terrible parents.
Growing a family is one of the most beautiful things. Yet the act of creating such a beautiful thing can almost become our undoing.
Some of my best work - photographically and in my family life - lives in those dark years.
Maybe our struggle, as miserable as it made me feel every moment of the day, made my creative work that much better because I knew how much it meant.
Watching the generations interact is a joy to photograph.
Someday, Naomi and I will be that older generation. We’ll look at the kids we raised, the life we built, and the work we’ve done together. And with any luck, there will be someone there with a camera to capture that moment.
Thank you for 10 years of Acorn and Oak Family Photography.
Comments