One week, the favorite shirt is all they will wear. The next, it has quietly disappeared from the drawer.
There is rarely an announcement. Family life moves on to the next morning, the next walk, and the next thing a child insists on doing for themselves. The change becomes visible only when something familiar is already missing.
What a photograph remembers
I photograph my own family because I can feel these changes happening while we are busy living them. A photograph brings back more than a piece of clothing. It can return the posture, expression, and scale of a child at a particular time.
The ordinary details matter because they belong to the life we actually shared. They do not need to be polished or important to anyone outside the family.
Comfort now, and a way back later
My daughter and I look through old photographs together. They give both of us joy and comfort. She has carried a photograph to school when she missed home.
That is why I want photographs to leave the hard drive. A print can live in the same rooms where a family’s days happen. It can be held now and rediscovered later, when the favorite shirt and the child who wore it have both changed.