The best photos come from paying attention.

Of course I want the photograph where everyone is looking at me and nobody is blinking. Your parents will want that one. You'll probably frame it. But I'm paying just as much attention to everything that happens before and after it.

The way your youngest still reaches up to be held. Your daughter's missing teeth. Your son's ridiculous laugh. The way your husband looks at you when you're busy looking at the kids. The tiny mannerisms and relationships that are so familiar to you right now that you barely notice them anymore. Those are the things I want to remember for you.

I'll find beautiful light and give you direction when you need it. I'll tell you where to stand and what to do with your hands. I'll fix your hair. I'll get everyone looking at the camera. And then I'll let things happen.

Love on your kids. Pick them up. Chase them. Let them be weird. Kiss your husband. Laugh when someone inevitably decides they're done cooperating. Your family doesn't need to perform for me. I'm not trying to make your life look perfect. I'm trying to make photographs that feel like your life.

The strange thing about family photographs is that you don't really know what you've made until years later. One day you'll look at them and realize how round his cheeks still were. How little she looked standing next to you. How young you and your husband were, too. You'll see the house you lived in, the way they fit in your arms, and a version of your family that doesn't exist anymore.

This is why I photograph families the way I do.

Beautiful photographs, absolutely. But more importantly, photographs that mean more as the years go by.