Around the House - Photographing Daily Life

Daily life can span the gamut from the mundane to the absolutely crazy, especially when you have a kid or multiple kids running around.  Too often though we forget that within our daily life, no matter how crazy, there are moments and things worth documenting and remembering.

I mean sure, as a parent we're always looking for those big milestones we "need" to document:  first steps, birthdays, first time riding a bike without training wheels, and the list goes on.  But, how many of the daily activities or shenanigans that go on do we overlook because they happen everyday?

You may not have thought about it yet, but how long do you think some of those daily activities or shenanigans are going to keep going?  Will the kiddo always be coming into the room without undies on and turning around and yelling "Tushie!!" with a big smile on their face (an almost daily occurrence in my house)?  Hopefully not, but it's not a shenanigan I want to forget.  What about, that smile my boy has as he stands on the stool admiring himself in the mirror while we brushes his teeth?  I certainly don't want to forget that, and there are countless others as well.

How do we preserve those memories if we don't photograph them?  Memory loss happens with old age, it's a fact we can't dispute, and unless your name is Benjamin Button we aren't going to ever get any younger.

A little while ago, I wrote a blog post titled "Car Washing with Dad & The Importance of Preserving These Special Moments" where I talked about sitting down with my son on a recent vacation and looking through photos of my childhood.  It was a moment I hope to repeat many times over in the future, and I know that each time will be special; however, that isn't why I mention it.  I mention it because my parents took the time and made the effort to capture the moments of daily life and preserve those memories for later.  If they hadn't done that, then I wouldn't have been able to sit with my son and flip through the album; I wouldn't have remembered those special little moments.

As as I sit and write this blog post, I can't help but think about all of the special little moments from daily life that are important.  I can't help but think about the things my son does almost daily that causes me laugh, smile, or in all honesty be completed frustrated, but isn't that worth remembering as well?

Sometimes as a photographer, I just want to take pictures and there's no rhyme or reason other than that for me to pick up my camera.  Often we are just around the house and the kid is doing his thing, and a being a near perfect subject for me to create a few photos of him doing whatever it is he's doing.  Often when I look back at these photos, I find that I've captured a moment I don't want to forget.  Which is awesome!  But I can't help but wonder what other moments of daily life I gloss over because they are so routine.

What if I was intentional about capturing these daily life moments?
What moments of daily life would then become important for me photograph?

I don't want the moments to be posed or unnatural, but what if I said to myself "I want to remember that" or "I need to make sure I get a photo of him doing that".  I think at that point I would ingraining those moments into my memory even more, and that the photographs I take would only help to better retain that memory making it easier to share with others later.

What special attention are you giving every day life?  How intentional are you about document and preserving those every day life moments?  That's my challenge to you - take a few moments to think about daily life around your house and think about the silly, funny, and/or frustrating shenanigans your kids do that you want to remember, and that you want them to remember later on.  Once you've got a few of those in mind, be intentional about photographing and preserving those moments.

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Here are a few of the daily moments around my house.  Some of them may seem mundane and hardly worth photographing, but the important part is not necessarily the photo but the story that goes along with it.  The photo is simply a visual representation to jog the memory and prompt the telling of the story.