What belongs to the senses

My coffee is steaming in a blue-speckled tin mug on the small wooden table in front of me and my college-ruled notebook.

The kids are still all sleeping and Matt is working on the porch.

There are two deer grazing in the hay field and the bullfrogs croak from the pond down the hill.

A Hard Rock Cafe shot glass full of wildflowers sits on the windowsill in front of me.

My parents are sleeping in the other room of the cabin they built when I was ten and where my youngest son is now curled up on an air mattress with his blankie and Buzz Lightyear.

It feels like one of those scenes I couldn’t possibly make up and couldn’t take a picture of, either. But it should live somewhere and now it does.

I did another extended family session last week where I met four generations in the backyard of their rented house on the lake. We made portraits and they played cornhole and took turns pushing kids on swings and holding babies and pushing the button on the bubble machine. As we wrapped up, the matriarch of the family who is in her early 90's, wrapped her arms around my neck in firm and long hug and said “thank you, Leah - you've given me the best gift.”

She hadn't seen a single photo yet.

I think the result is really only part of it, though.

She knew that in that moment, I became witness to something rare and strong, a legacy she's been living and weaving for 90+ years.

That's the part that makes the photos even better.

(I hope to be able to share more from this session in the future because it was just so special, but I never include photos in a public medium before the family has experienced them for themselves, first + waiting is another thing that makes the photos even better.)

A visceral memory came back to me when we were at our cabin last weekend from the smell of sizzling bacon on the grill mixed with coffee and fresh air. As a kid, I would wake up in the open loft to those smells and the sound of my papaw's four-wheeler pulling up the gravel road, his heavy workboots padding up the steps and the scape of a kitchen chair being pulled out as he would sit for breakfast.

I would doze in an out, laying there in my bunkbed, hearing the blur of his stories and sound of his deep voice, always with the smell of grilled bacon and coffee.

Some things can be captured with photos, and others just live in our bodies like a thousand fingerprints.

To set up a family photo session feels a little contrived, if we're being honest.

It's okay, I agree.

Why do photographers say that anyways? That they'll capture “your story?”

Whether you're in a field or a parking lot or at home doesn’t change that. A story is vast and weaving and complex.

These photo sessions don’t actually capture the story and they don't capture the actual moments that make up your life. I get that. You get that. We all get that.

What I’m hoping we can do is create our own moments that replant you in your life.

I’m not there capturing you groggily pick your baby out of her crib after 2 hours of interrupted sleep, though to be fair, those pictures can have their place and a part of me selfishly would love if you would call me to do that.

And at the same time, there are some memories that belong to the senses, on pages, in shared laughter on a porch over gin and tonic and lime.

Photography is simply one mode of memory-keeping – art-making of the life in front of you. I want the pictures I make of families to feel honest, but I also want them to become record of the pieces that are hard to capture in other ways.

There’s a solid place for a good mini session where you’re simply photographed in your deepest joy together on a summer night. A portrait that holds who you were with this number of wrinkles and love of baggy linen… they with that particular goofy haircut and gapped teeth.

There’s a place, too, for the photographs at home playing basketball in the driveway and swinging on the rickety swingset, cuddled on the steps of that wrap-around front-porch that you dreamed about your whole life.

There's a place for pictures sitting on the counter eating blueberries and in the messy kids bedroom that will change 4 more times before they leave for college and it becomes a boring guest room with zero band posters on the ceiling. How sad and profound at a thought.

What a gift to choose to hold things in our senses, in our notebooks, and on our walls.

I am glutton for memories and stories in all fashions.

I hope the pictures we make only add to yours.

And like all things that we hold and wherever we hold them, how we experience the making is always baked right in.

// new + noteworthy //

TO WATCH // Forever late to the game, Kira and I just finished watching the Eras Tour Documentary on Disney and wow wow. Sure it has some profanity, but the positivity and understanding of the creation process, of the dedication and people who put such a phenomenon together, outweighs it by a long-shot. Still thinking about it and I'm not even really a “swiftie.” Maybe now I am?

THINGS I SAVED THIS WEEK//
Not a lot because when I tell you I'm on a marketing deadzone and barely on instagram, I'm not lying. Also the algorithm fed me this which proves my point. Also, it's hilarious.

SOMETHING TO DO //

Have you left reviews for the businesses or products you love lately? Apparently reviews and becoming more clutch for search engines now and solidifying credibility, so if there's a small business or owner you admire, take 2 minutes and leave a thoughtful review because it really does make a difference. If I'm one of those businesses, I'd be really grateful for that 2 minutes, too. (If you're a podcast listener, the same applies to Apple Podcast reviews!! ;-))

// ways to work together //

Limited July Mini Sessions | 4 spots left on July 1st → RESERVE A SPOT

Signature Sessions | all the details → BOOK A SESSION (if you prefer a payment plan, just hit reply and I'll work with you to coordinate the details!)

I have availability for ONE 1:1 mentoring client in July | all the details → YES TO SUPPORT!

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CREATIVITY | FAMILY | SIMPLE JOYS

On instagram @leahoconnell.photo

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