a photo you can frame

Occasionally, I come across a client who is unsure if candid, lifestyle, photojournalistic, 'real-life', [insert whatever non-studio-style label you'd like] photography is right for her family. She might express her hesitation and that it stems from the need to be able to ultimately frame the photos... The implication is that certain styles of photography are better suited for framing than others.

You want to know my opinion on that? I think there is nothing more meaningful than those real moments, though you might not know it yet. Those mundane, daily minutiae that you'd just as soon forget, during a hectic bustle of a day, running after kids, juggling chores and errands, screaming toddlers, wailing babies, the demands of work... when all you want to do is kick off your shoes and call the day done. The last thing you want to think about on one of those days is remembering the moments, right?

Wrong. It's happened to me. Mundane moments have slipped away, only to be rediscovered years later, forgotten on some half-shredded old phone or video camera or SLR living in the toy bin, or on some dismantled external hard drive you thought had long-ago bit the dust.

The moments when your kid stared at you with a face-full of pasta sauce and all you could do was think about the even bigger sprawl of tomatoes on the floor you'd have to clean. When they decided in a fleeting moment to turn the living room into a fort, complete with shredded styrofoam 'snow'. Or when the dog figured out the best way to fill the void of your absence is to drag a paint stirrer slathered with wet white paint onto your couch.

Okay, maybe some of these moments are better forgotten. But I'll bet for the most part, it's the real smiles and cries you'll want to return to, the real moments of emotion - be it anger or sadness or joy.