LIVE YOUR AUTHENTIC FAMILY LIFE

As I packed up my camera and doled out goodbye hugs, I realized my heart was overheating. I had finished one of the brightest sessions of my photography career. These girls. This family. The authenticity.

You could feel the "life is stressful with young kids" and at the same time, their love was thick.

Photographing families who allow you to see all of their layers gives me hope because the more we show who we really are, the more we normalize what we've learned to hide: raising a family is equally difficult as it is beautiful.

This young family has a natural, candid way about them. All of them. They are unassuming and disarming. They glide around each other as they move from one part of the day to the next. They aren't overly concerned about what's coming next.

They’re connected and individual. Crazy and calm. Sometimes all at once. Like the rest of us.

And this. This photo above tells the complete story. The beauty in the chaos. The days are filled with sisters who are nonstop wild. Natural entertainers. Mom and dad bring their own energy to the family with their quick yet subtle humor and warm hearts.

Together they create perfection that only they can own. It’s all here.

Find the moments that fill your heart.

Let go of what you think it ought to be and breathe in what it is.

Like many of us, we divide to conquer. Some look at it as a way to survive, but I like to think it’s an opportunity to connect. Dad with one daughter and mom with the other. It’s their time and, later in the day, they will trade, creating another chance to bond. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The above set of pictures is another reason I’m enamored with this family. They show the innocence and truth of dressing babies. It can be stress-filled one minute and laughter-filled the next. A microcosm of parenthood.

In the pictures above, she refused to play the guitar for me until her dad started to sing Let It Go. And he did so unabashedly. Totally worth the wait.

A little girl who roughhouses with her dad climbs trees in dresses, and wears her cowboy boots on the wrong feet is a gift to be treasured. Especially one who takes a moment to show how her hand fits neatly into the handprint her dad made in cement back in 1977.

Mom and Dad walked these trails and hills in Berkeley as teenagers, making their family’s hike down to Pete’s more than just an average weekend ritual.

Photography isn't only a record of what you look like. It can be a tool for connecting the past to the present

There was no fussing or posing. No bustling about trying to create a family portrait. Everything unfolded with ease. Naturally. One photo flowed effortlessly into the next.

For me, and many of my family photography clients, the ideal family portrait is unforced. Show me how you live in a genuine and unconstrained way. These are the pictures I continually am drawn to well after I've packed away my camera.

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