I gave up studying families and ended up... studying families.

Let's be honest (because it's the new catchphrase). But let me, anyway, be honest with you. The bold move from academia to photography was not wholly planned. It happened over time, as a natural consequence of circumstance. Lack of jobs in academia + my unwillingness to move to the ends of the world to pursue said jobs + my love of photography and the creative process. Those are the main circumstances at play here.

My full circle cross-discipline transformation was me going from studying "families" in the plural, nameless faceless subject numbers in databases hidden on servers in basement labs... to really studying families, individually, slowly, and in the flesh.

What used to be endless hours of rating mothers and fathers on scales of "appropriateness", "sensitivity", and "warmth" (and always feeling like a failed parent myself as a consequence) was replaced with something much more visceral and uplifting: a documenting of parents' struggles and joys, minute moment-to-moment interactions that no one remembers and that regardless somehow make up our lives.

Maybe it's ironic that toward the end of my academic career, I was fighting tooth and nail to dismiss with subjective rating scales of parenting quality, and focus on the moment-to-moment behaviours, without judgments or messages. Or maybe it's telling.

Anyway, here are a few images of a shoot from last week that gave me joy to photograph and to edit.