it’s such a funny feeling as a parent to all at once be captivated and in love with watching your child grow up and become more and more his or her own person while at the same time wanting to freeze each stage in time and hope they’ll sit on your lap and snuggle with you forever. i guess that’s one reason photographing children is so exciting and really, an emotional endeavor. it’s also why i tend to love photographing unscripted moments . . . if we’re going to try to stop time and remember each stage and phase as we marvel at our children growing up, why not freeze them just as they are?

this is my son enjoying an art activity at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts just a few days ago on mother’s day. i love how he gets so into what he is creating — whether it’s when he’s painting or coloring or when he’s doing his rock star routine or he’s making up scenes for his Star Wars action figures –he is able to tune out the world around him and just do his thing; to let his thoughts and creativity take over. it’s inspiring. and it fills my heart with so much joy and love as well as gives me something to aspire to.

to me it’s much more powerful to capture a child “in the moment” like this than to capture an image of him/her looking and smiling at the camera. i have an image from this same activity of my son doing just that and i love that photo too, for sure (like any parent, i could stare at my son’s face all day) but that image doesn’t speak as strongly to who my son is and what he’s like at this time in his life as this photo does:

admittedly, it can be a bit easier to photograph these quiet, thought-filled moments than the ninja/super hero/rock star ones, but those are super fun and important to capture too and another side of celebrating kids as they are — that’s when you put your camera on “continuous” or “burst” mode and shoot away. . .and that’s a blog post for another day! 😉