Exist in Photos for Your Children
Ten years ago my wife and I attended art school about an hour from where I grew up in the Berkshires. What an awesome opportunity, I thought. I’m only a stone’s throw from my entire family and I have access to more studio equipment then I’ve ever seen in my life. Getting a multi-generational portrait should have been easy, but it proved to be one of the few things I didn’t accomplish while enrolled there for nearly a year. Like the shoe maker’s kids that never had shoes, I never mustered the minimal effort necessary to produce a portrait of all of us before it was too late.
My grandfather died shortly after we opened our first studio and I was heartbroken. The last trip he had made out to the Boston area was to be there for our open house, but even by that point he was a shell of his former self. Afterwards I wanted a family portrait, but the only option I had was to work with my parents and my grandmother. While we made that happen and we love the results, I can’t help but wish I’d done it sooner.
It’s always worth the effort and it only appreciates with time. You won’t remember the kids running around screaming as you try to coordinate outfits; you won’t care that you missed the first hour of the football game that Sunday; it won’t even bother you that your next day off won’t happen until the following weekend. But with any luck, you’ll get the same feeling for the next forty years when you look at that portrait that I do when I look at the image of my grandfather holding me when I was nearly a year old.