Not my family: teaser

The kitchen table. 

In its lifetime, that table will make room for important packages and be reserved for celebratory or noteworthy meals. The wood over time will get scratched from school projects and scarred by the pressing of a pen onto paper as you write out a list or a letter to a loved one. And as time leaves marks on our lives, so do we on the kitchen table like all the times we carelessly placed our coffee mug or wine glass down, leaving a ring or, letting tears, both happy and sad, fall and dissolve into the wood thus, slowly leaving a trace and a story behind. It’s the place where some of the most thought-provoking conversations are had and side-splitting laughs are shared.

When you get right down to it, it is one of the most important pieces of furniture you will ever own and the piece that often gets overlooked. 

The kitchen table is where the idea was born to write this book with a little help from my friends. A book about my journey as a photographer, the families I interact with and how as a photographer, I’m called to tell the stories through images of persons who are not my family and yet, are my family.

Photography is a wonderful art form that when properly appreciated and executed, opens your eyes to what they’ve been closed to and often, it’s what’s right in front of you that you’ve been asleep to. For me, photography is a great teacher of what drives people, what the human experience and a tool to capture a moment of stillness even in motion. 

My hope is throughout this book you find meaning where meaning is needed most in your life, wherever that may be. That you will look at moments differently than you’ve looked at them before. That you see what raw, authentic moments truly look like; ones that are without staging, airbrushing or done for social media. The pure moments that are truly lived and seem so far forgotten.

Life is the moment we are living now and I’m simply here to capture it.