On May 10th, I lost my dad to cancer. To say it has been a difficult year would be the understatement of the century. Behind the difficulties there was a lot of growing happening that I didn’t notice until recently. Looking back at old photos, I don’t care so much about the photos of ME from my childhood, but the photos where my parents are present with ME. To be honest, the loss of my dad has really changed who I am as a photographer. The moments I was documenting before are precious to ME but will they be precious to my girls once I (or Luke) am gone?
I have started looking through my archives of thousands upon thousands of photos of my children and I see one major issue with all of them.. the absence of me. Their dad is in a good handful.. a bit more than I have of my dad and I together growing up. But when I look at numbers and estimated percentages I notice that I am in less than 1% of the photos I have of my children. Their dad is in less than 5%.
The absence of their parents is a reoccurring theme in my archives. I have hundreds of images like the one above that depicts my children’s everyday life, except that they aren’t necessarily true to life images. Where am I… I was there, directing, helping, cheering them on as they baked together. But by looking at this image you would never know that was the case.
This summer I have slowly started showing up in photos with my children. Even if they are just cheesy selfies. Those are the images they are going to want when they grow up.
I am very sad that it has taken something so traumatic for me to realize my absence. This is going to be the beginning of a series about creative and fun ways you can be in your images with your kids. Most people do not have the income to hire a photographer to come and document their lives multiple times a year (more on this later). But there are ways for you to be present. One great way to start is by booking your annual family portraits. Here in Colorado I know photographers start booking their fall family sessions in July… or earlier. I do know there are some photographers out there that still have availability so if you haven’t booked, you should.
Parents… get in front of the camera.