Finding beauty and joy in your daily rituals and routines, Atlanta family photographer

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“To love your days is to love your life.”

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I’m always inspired by the ideas of James Clear (if you aren’t subscribed to his 3-2-1 newsletter you should be). When I came across what he had to say here (the last part especially), it resonated with why I feel so strongly about photographing the lives of families the way I do.

"Many people view their habits and routines as obstacles or, at the very least, obligations to get through. Making the morning coffee, driving your kids to the next activity, preparing the next meal-we often see our routines as chores to be completed.

But these are not moments to be dismissed. They are life. Making coffee can be a peaceful ritual-perhaps even a fulfilling one-if done with care rather than rushed to completion. It's about the amount of attention you devote to these simple moments, and whether you choose to appreciate them or bulldoze through them on the way to the next task.

Find the beauty and joy in your daily rituals and you will find beauty and joy in your daily life. To love your habits is to love your days, and to love your days is to love your life." - James Clear

Life with young kids can feel like it’s just work…all the time. When your days are a string of routines that lead you to bedtime with little time left for anything extra, it can feel really exhausting. It IS really exhausting. Maybe, if we can see that string of routines as being the point of it all—rather than a thing to get through so you can get on with other things—we will be able to see and feel more ease in our days.

And if your family is anything like my family, your routines still may not feel ease-y even with a mindset shift. But I promise, if you can have someone show you what it looks like, you will see that there is still beauty and joy in the way you tend to your family during those routines. I hope that by seeing your days you will come to love your days and in turn love your life. Cause even when the days feel messy and chaotic, there are opportunities for tender moments of connection within the daily routine.

Thanks to this family for reminding me to find the joy in shared rituals.

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Snuggle Sunday, Atlanta Family Photographer

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A cozy, fall Sunday morning

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There’s nothing I love to photograph more than a laid back Sunday morning with a family in their home. And what’s a better way to knock out family pictures than while you’re stretching into your day with snuggles and play?

The Tripathy family knows how to do it right. Sundays are for making breakfast while dodging trucks racing by. For getting in all the snuggles you can while tending to the necessary routines. For making loose plans for how to maximize the rest of the too-short weekend. For jumping on the bed and nursing sessions and naps.

This day was a cozy, fall morning at its finest. I hope they remember this day every time the leaves turn orange and the Halloween decorations line the porch.

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Transforming Perspectives

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LIFE IN 2021

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I’m honored to have the photo below on display as part of the DFP group exhibition Life in 2021. Documentary Family Photographers (DFP) is a global community, directory, and photography resource and education platform committed to empowering and connecting families and photographers from all walks of life.  The organization aims to transform perspectives and to create an impact on lives through documentary photography and community. Life in 2021 showcases images from documentary family photographers from around the world.  The imagery highlighted in the Life in 2021 exhibit is of true stories from 2021 and the universal yet multi-faceted experiences of the year - the good, the bad, the funny, and more. Life in 2021 will be available to viewers online from January 21st – March 6th, 2022. For more information about DFP, or to view the exhibit starting January 21st, please visit www.dfp-gallery.com.

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Masked

This photo was taken during a family gathering in Iowa in the fall of 2021. The kids decorated masks, and then they went about playing with their masks on, completely unaware of how their innocent environment and childhood play had suddenly turned macabre. It’s this play of illusion vs. reality that kept me coming back to these images and how they relate to our lives in 2021, a year where our lives were still disrupted by the pandemic. A year where we were still wearing masks even though we thought we wouldn’t be. A year where people’s perceptions of reality varied greatly, even within my own family.

The Halloween mask, as a symbolic representation of death, is unsettling on a child. Placing a child within this frightening illusion is the sort of thing that scary movies are made of. Masks affect our perceptions of reality. This may be why the idea of wearing a mask has been a very emotional and polarizing part of the American experience of this pandemic. The idea of the mask itself requires an acceptance of a reality that includes sickness and death. Within this context, wearing a mask has become a sort of performative act, much like wearing a Halloween mask, where an illusion of how you want to be perceived based on your reality is projected onto others.

The following photos are part of this series but are not included as part of the exhibition.

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