For a number of years I’ve created retrospective photo books of our family’s life year by year. The way life goes, I’ve fallen behind in actually sitting down and creating the books – pulling all of the photos together, culling them down, working up the layouts and getting the dang things printed. It’s all feasible and the materials are there and ready, it’s just a matter of needing to make it happen.

I set a goal for this year to get caught up with these. The next one for me to tackle is 2022. It feels like both yesterday and a lifetime ago. I have all of the photos pulled into a giant album on Flickr and I’ve been slowly pulling out things that are duplicated, the seven shots of a sledding outing pulled down to just one, and it’s taking its sweet time.

I have really enjoyed sitting back down with these images, though. And I’m appreciating in particular the everyday nature of a lot of the photos. This is who we are. This is how we live. This is what we do, who we care about, how we spend our time and our resources.

It’s been encouraging me to make sure I’m still taking those photos of our more everyday moments. My children are getting older and putting the camera lens in their faces feels more intrusive than it used to, but I know I can work around that in so many different ways. I just need to keep taking those photos. I know they’ll matter down the line more than I might think they do in the moment.

All the best,
Alison