Get in the Pictures

I have six kids.

Three of them I gave birth to, and like most moms, I have approximately a million pictures of them growing up.

Pictures of birthdays and Christmas mornings. School stuff. Vacations. Ordinary days. All the things you photograph because at the time you think you're taking a picture of your kid, and years later you realize you were actually keeping a piece of your life.

You know what I don't have nearly enough of?

Pictures with me in them.

There are some, of course. The occasional posed family picture. The pictures where everybody stood together and looked at the camera. Nothing particularly flattering or beautiful. Nothing that really shows what it felt like when we were all together.

Mostly, I was the one taking the pictures.

And I didn't realize what that meant until much later.

Some Parts of the Story I Never Got to See

My other three children came into my life when they were 9, 14 and 16.

I didn't get their baby years.

I didn't get toddler pictures or missing front teeth or kindergarten mornings. I didn't get to photograph the little versions of them because I didn't know them yet.

Those years are simply part of their stories that happened before ours became one.

By the time all six kids were together, we did have professional family pictures taken. Those photographs are some of my favorites now because we're all there.

Someone else held the camera.

For once, I wasn't documenting my family from the outside.

I was standing in the middle of it.

But even those photographs don't give me everything I wish I had now.

I wish I had more pictures of how we actually were together.

The interactions. The laughing. Kids piled around me. Somebody messing with somebody else. The expressions and relationships and completely ordinary things that didn't seem important enough to photograph at the time.

Because now they're grown.

Then the House Gets Quiet

There is something nobody can quite explain to you about raising kids until you get to the other side of it.

Eventually, the house gets quiet.

The bedrooms aren't really their bedrooms anymore. Nobody is constantly coming through the door. Nobody needs a ride somewhere. The noise and the mess and the constant movement that once felt like it would never end... ends.

And suddenly you find yourself wanting to go back and look at it.

Not because it was perfect.

Good Lord, it wasn't perfect.

I don't want photographs pretending it was.

I want to see us.

And there are pieces of that story I simply don't have.

I can't go back and create them now.

You Don't Have to Be Perfect

I understand why moms stay out of pictures.

Maybe you want to lose weight first.

Maybe you don't like your arms.

Maybe you hate having your picture taken.

Maybe you tell yourself you'll do family pictures after you get your hair done, after things settle down, after the kids get a little easier, after you feel more like yourself again.

There is always an after.

And I promise I'm not saying that from some place of perfect body confidence. I'm saying it as a mom who has been on the other side of the camera for far too many years herself.

You don't have to be perfect to be in the pictures.

You just have to get into them.

One Mom and Four Daughters

That's part of why I loved this session at Camp Mohawk so much.

One mom came out with her four daughters.

We made the pretty portraits. I gave them direction. We put everybody where they needed to be and got the photographs where everything came together.

Then we let things loosen up.

They walked. They laughed. The girls interacted with their mom and with each other. I watched for the things that happened between the pictures we had planned.

And then we got a bonus.

Dad hadn't originally planned to be there, but he ended up coming out too.

So we got him in the pictures.

All of them.

One family, together, with somebody else holding the camera.

An Invitation From One Mom to Another

Your phone is probably full of pictures of your children.

Keep taking them.

Take the first days of school and the birthdays and the vacations. Take the blurry ones and the ridiculous ones and the 47 pictures of exactly the same thing because you couldn't decide which expression you liked best.

But every once in a while, hand the camera to somebody else.

And if you want more than that, come see me.

Bring me your babies whether they're 2 or 22.

You don't need to lose weight first. Your kids don't need to behave perfectly. Your family doesn't need matching clothes, and your life doesn't need to look like something you saw on Pinterest.

We'll get the beautiful portrait.

Then we'll spend some time photographing what it actually looks like when you're together.

Because someday the house gets quiet.

And when you go looking for the stories you lived together, I want you to be able to find yourself in them.

— Christy

Christy White Photography
Family & Storytelling Photographer | Alvin, Texas