Perfect photographs show us what we looked like. Imperfect photographs can remind us who we were.

There is a photograph somewhere in your family that probably isn’t technically perfect.

Someone is looking away. A child is mid-laugh. There is movement in the frame. Maybe the clothes aren’t perfectly arranged or the room in the background looks exactly as it did on an ordinary Tuesday.

And somehow, that is the photograph everyone loves.

Not because it was perfect, but because it feels familiar.

It remembers something.

The photographs we value change with time.

When photographs are first taken, we notice how we look. We notice the outfit, the hair, whether everyone smiled.

Years later, we notice different things.

How small your child’s hand was inside yours. The way your mother laughed. Your husband’s expression when he looked at you. The home you once lived in. The people who were there.

Things that seemed completely ordinary at the time become the very things we wish we could return to.

That is one of the reasons we believe photographs become more valuable with time.

Not every photograph needs everyone looking at the camera.

We will always make room for the photograph where everyone is together and beautifully composed. That photograph matters too.

But some of our favorites happen just before or just after it.

A child reaching for you. Hair caught by the wind. Someone laughing before they were ready. The glance between two people who forgot, for a second, that a camera was there.

We don’t see those moments as mistakes.

We see them as part of the story.

Your life is worth photographing before it changes.

It is easy to postpone photographs.

After the baby comes. When you lose the weight. When the kids are older. When work slows down. When everyone can finally coordinate schedules.

But life rarely announces when something is about to become a memory.

The way your family looks right now will change. Your children will grow. Your relationships will deepen. Homes will change. People will come and go.

There is value in documenting this version of your life simply because this is the version you are living now.

And then, print them.

We believe photographs deserve to exist somewhere other than a phone.

Print the beautiful portrait.

But print the imperfect one, too.

Put it in a frame. Make the album. Give copies to your parents. Let your children grow up seeing themselves on the walls of their home.

Because someday, someone you love may pick up one of those photographs.

They probably won’t care whether everyone was looking at the camera.

They’ll care that they can still see the way you were.

Today has a quiet way of becoming the good old days.

Photograph it accordingly.

YOUR STORY, AS IT IS NOW

Family, maternity and couples photography throughout Northern Virginia, Washington, D.C. and the DMV.

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