The Photographs We Don’t Know We’ll Need Yet

I’ve been struggling to write this month’s blog.

Usually, I have something planned. A season. A beautiful portrait. An idea I want to share with my clients.

But lately, everything feels a little different.

I’m grieving.

And when you’re grieving, the things that once seemed important can suddenly become very, very small.

What has been occupying my mind instead are photographs.

The photographs we take without thinking much about them.

The slightly blurry ones.

The ones where nobody is perfectly posed.

The ones where someone is laughing, looking away, sitting at the kitchen table, or simply being themselves.

Because sometimes, those become the photographs that mean the most.

We think we're photographing how someone looks.

But really, we are photographing evidence that they were here.

Their hands.

Their smile.

The way they tilted their head.

The expression they made when they were teasing you.

The clothes they always wore.

The little things you never imagined you would someday miss.

Recently, I have found myself looking at photographs of my dad differently.

I see things now that I might have overlooked before.

A familiar expression.

A particular smile.

A moment that seemed completely ordinary when it happened.

And yet, looking at it now, that ordinary moment feels extraordinary.

That is the strange and beautiful thing about photography.

We never truly know the value of an image when we make it.

Sometimes its meaning grows with time.

Sometimes years later, a photograph becomes a doorway.

You look at it and, for just a moment, you are there again.

You can almost hear the voice.

You remember the laugh.

You remember how it felt to be together.

And suddenly, that photograph is no longer just an image.

It is a place you can still go back to.

Maybe that is why I believe so deeply in portraiture.

Not because we need more photographs of ourselves.

Not because everything has to be perfectly styled, perfectly lit, or perfectly posed.

But because we are temporary, and our photographs can outlive us.

We photograph our children because they won't always be this little.

We photograph our parents because they won't always be here.

We photograph our families because life changes quietly, often before we realize it.

And we photograph ourselves because one day, someone may be grateful that we were part of the photograph too.

I think we spend far too much time waiting.

Waiting until we've lost the weight.

Waiting until our hair looks better.

Waiting until we have the perfect outfit.

Waiting until we feel more confident.

Waiting for the right occasion.

But life doesn't wait for us to become perfect.

It simply keeps moving.

And perhaps the photograph you almost didn't take today will someday become the one you would give anything to have.

So this is my little reminder to you—and perhaps, in some ways, a reminder to myself:

Take the photograph.

Photograph your mother.

Photograph your father.

Photograph your children exactly as they are today.

Photograph the people you love laughing around the dinner table.

Get in the photograph yourself.

Don't worry about whether everything is perfect.

Because one day, you may look at an ordinary photograph and realize it contains something extraordinary:

A moment when you were still together.

And sometimes, a photograph isn't just a photograph.

Sometimes, it is a memory.

Sometimes, it is a legacy.

Sometimes, it is a piece of someone we get to keep.

And sometimes...

it is a place we can still go back to.

— Hatice
Las Photo De Lance Photography