Lately, I have been writing letters.
Not emails. Not newsletters. Actual, handwritten letters.
Each one is going to one of my Founding Mothers as we get closer to opening the Roadhouse studio.
It has been a surprisingly time-consuming little project, but I have come to love it. There is something about sitting down with a blank piece of paper and writing directly to one person that gets my creative brain moving in a way that a computer screen doesn't.
And something else has started happening.
I find myself dreaming about sessions.
Not just the sessions of my Founding Mothers, but the people I see in everyday life.
I'll see someone at church or in town and suddenly I'm thinking about what their family photographs could look like.
Recently, I found myself thinking about an older woman at church.
She sits next to her daughter, and her granddaughter is often there too, bringing her two-year-old and her new baby boy.
And I could picture their session almost immediately.
I don't see them lined up in rows, all smiling at the camera.
I see Grandma sitting on a beautiful vintage sofa.
She is the constant.
Her daughter comes and sits beside her. Her granddaughter comes in with the children. The toddler climbs up beside Grandma. The new baby gets passed from one set of arms to another.
Someone wanders away.
Someone comes back.
Someone sits on the arm of the sofa.
And Grandma stays right there in the middle of it all.
That is the picture I can't get out of my head.
I love the contrast of it.
The newest little baby in the arms of a woman who has lived decades of life. Tiny hands beside older hands. A two-year-old with all of his energy beside someone who has already watched generations grow up.
The youngest and the oldest in the same frame.
That is the kind of photograph that makes me stop.
Because it isn't really about getting a photograph of everyone together.
It is about showing how they belong together.
I think that is what I am learning to look for.
When I photograph a family, I don't want to simply think about where everyone should stand.
I want to know who the constant is.
Who makes everyone laugh?
Who always holds the baby?
Who does the toddler run to?
Who has been there for every season?
Who is the storyteller?
Who is the wild one?
Who quietly keeps everyone connected?
Those relationships are where the photographs become personal.
Sometimes I imagine a family in the creek with a minnow bucket and a fishing net.
Sometimes I see little girls in denim and white with bright bows and wildflowers.
Sometimes I picture a mother and her children in the studio, surrounded by beautiful light and old things.
And sometimes I see an old sofa with a grandmother sitting in the middle while the rest of her family moves around her.
I don't always know exactly what the session will become.
And I don't think I need to.
I just want to start with the people.
Their personalities.
Their relationships.
Their stories.
Then we can build the photographs around that.
Maybe that's what I love most about creating heirloom portraits.
Years from now, I don't want you to look at your photograph and simply remember what everyone was wearing or what year it was taken.
I want you to remember who you were to each other.
I want you to see the little hands that once fit so easily into yours.
The grandmother who was the center of everything.
The toddler who couldn't sit still.
The baby who was brand new.
The mother who held everyone together.
The people who came and went from that old sofa but always belonged there.
Those are the things worth turning into art.
And lately, before I ever pick up my camera, I find myself dreaming about how to do exactly that.
