01/06/2026
Why Family Photos Matter ⢠We were a family of photographers who forgot to photograph each other.
My dad, my mom, meāwe all had cameras. We documented everything: trips, sunsets, the dogs, random beautiful moments we'd pass on the street. We talked composition. We noticed light.
But we were always behind the camera. Never in front of it together.
Someone was always shooting around us, not of us. And in the film days, you didn't just snap endlessly like we do now. Every shot cost something. So we saved them for things that felt more important than just... us.
I have boxes of photos from my childhood. Polaroids, prints. My parents captured me growing up in thousands of little moments.
But when I got my own camera at 9, something shifted. I became the one behind the lens too.
And when digital took over in the early 2000s? We shot endlesslyābut never printed. Those files lived on hard drives, memory cards, forgotten folders.
When my dad died in 2015, I went looking for photos of us together as adults.
I found a handful of selfies I'd forced. A few shots from family gatherings where we happened to both be in frame. That was it.
No portraits. No "let's get one of just us." No photos that said, "This is my dad and me, and we matter."
I have photos he took. Somewhere. On drives I may never find.
But I don't have him. Not the way I need to.
Then my mom in 2020. My grandmother last January. My aunt three weeks later.
I keep searching through my phone, hoping I grabbed enough.
That's why I do this.
Not just for pretty pictures (though yes, we'll make those too). But because I knowāintimately, painfullyāthat one day these photos will be all you have left.
And I never want you to go looking and find nothing.