Do I Really Need Professional Family Photos Every Year?

It's a question I hear often: Do we really need professional family photos every year?

The short answer?

No.

You don't need professional photographs every year.

But after photographing families for years—and watching children grow from toddlers into teenagers—I can tell you that a year is much longer than it feels.

Especially when you look back.

A Year Doesn't Seem Like Much Until You Compare the Photographs

When you're living your everyday life, change happens so gradually that you barely notice it.

Your son's face gets a little less round.

Your daughter loses her front teeth.

The toddler who needed to be carried everywhere suddenly insists on walking ten steps ahead of you.

Your teenager gets taller than you.

The dog who was once the rambunctious puppy becomes the gray-faced family member who has somehow been there for everything.

You don't necessarily notice these changes from Tuesday to Wednesday.

But put two photographs one year apart next to each other and suddenly you see it.

A lot happens in a year.

But I Take Thousands of Photos on My Phone

So do I.

And phone photographs are incredibly important.

They're the pancakes on Sunday morning, the ridiculous thing your child wore to school, the dog asleep upside down on the sofa and the vacation selfie where someone is inevitably cut off.

Keep taking them.

But there's one problem with the family camera roll:

Someone is usually missing from it.

Often it's the person taking the photographs.

Professional family photography gives you something your phone usually doesn't—a record of all of you together.

Not just the children.

Not just one parent with the children.

Your family.

You Don't Need a Completely Different Family Portrait Every Year

One of the things I love about photographing the same families over time is that the photographs begin to tell a larger story.

We might return to Riverside Park every fall.

We might photograph your family on the streets of the Upper West Side.

One year your child is on your shoulders. A few years later you're walking side by side.

The location may be familiar.

The people aren't.

You're all changing.

And eventually those annual photographs become chapters.

What If My Kids Are Older?

This is actually when many families stop scheduling professional photographs.

Once the baby and toddler years are over, it can feel as though there aren't as many milestones worth documenting.

I think that's a mistake.

There is so much emphasis on documenting childhood when children are little that we sometimes forget that the later years are part of the story too.

The awkward middle-school years.

The suddenly-grown-up high-school years.

The last photograph before someone leaves for college.

The years when your family is still living under one roof.

You won't know which year was the last year of a particular version of your family until it's already gone.

And Don't Forget the Dog

If your dog is part of your family, bring them.

Always.

Our pets are part of the rhythm of our homes and our children's childhoods, but their lives are heartbreakingly shorter than ours.

A photograph of everyone together—including the dog—may eventually become one of the most meaningful photographs you own.

Don't wait until they're old to decide they belong in the family portrait.

They've belonged there all along.

So, Should You Take Family Photos Every Year?

If it's financially comfortable for your family and photographs are something you value, I think once a year is wonderful.

But I don't believe photography should become another obligation on your calendar.

Maybe your rhythm is every eighteen months.

Maybe it's every other year.

Maybe there are certain seasons when you know you want to document your family.

What matters most is that you don't keep waiting for the perfect time.

Don't wait until you lose ten pounds.

Don't wait until your child gets braces off.

Don't wait until everyone's schedule calms down.

Don't wait until life looks exactly the way you imagined it would.

Because this version of your family deserves to exist in photographs too.

The Photographs Aren't Really for Right Now

When you first receive your gallery, you'll notice how everyone looks.

You'll choose a photograph for the holiday card.

You'll update a frame.

You'll send one to the grandparents.

But that's not when these photographs are at their most valuable.

Their value grows.

Five years from now, you'll notice how small your children were.

Ten years from now, you'll notice your own younger face.

Twenty years from now, your children may be the ones looking at them.

And someday, a completely ordinary photograph of everyone you love standing together may feel anything but ordinary.

That's why I photograph families.

Not because everyone needs another perfect picture.

But because your life is changing while you're busy living it.

And every once in a while, it's worth stopping long enough to keep a piece of it.