Between Onigiris and Ninjas
This is the first year I actually kept my New Year’s resolutions. I vowed to take (a lot) more time off for my family and take their photos with my camera more often.
Funnily, I was working so, so much that I didn’t want to use my cam during my personal time because that’s my rest, so to speak. And I like being in the moment of things and not really try to capture every little thing. Put travel on top, it’s just not something natural to me because I tend to pack super light since forever. Well, Ryan told me that he will carry my camera wherever we go so I don’t have to think about it. Plus I blinked and my kids are just not babies anymore. There is this overwhelming desire to freeze little things about them in time.
Not just the portraits. Or the annual family photos. I wanted to capture the things that I won’t have the most vivid memories of when we are all older. The hand squeezing and the leg hugging. The funny little spontaneous dances that Amara does. The way Nicky throws his head back when he laughs. How Rye makes everyone laugh and just doesn’t care what he does in public. The way the kids banter and just have those special moments when they are actually best friends before the next round of bickering begins.
So here I was in Japan, just shooting at any time and anywhere of the day - and it felt so liberating not to have to think about perfect light, or clothes, or every hair in place. It’s just the kids doing whatever they wanna do - and me doing what I wanna do, edit how I wanna edit. And I love how the images came out, and it’s just so US. And I look at the images and more than what I can see, I remember how the light just touches their face, how the leaves covered the ground and they enjoyed crunching them with every step, how Nicky still likes to hug us and lean on us even at 11 years old, how Amara brought along this little doll everywhere and showed her every single thing. I love that I’m taking these photos for us, because more than just the imagery, it takes me back to these moments and how they felt.
As what photos should really be.
