A while back I came across a post in my facebook feed about a family of four girls who had their photo taken together every year, for years, in the same order. The photos began from the time the four were ages 15-25, and went on for the following 36 years. I thought this was pretty impressive and it got me thinking about my own children, and photography.

Like all parents, we started with our first child snapping one photo after another. We have quite literally thousands of photos of Alesia, our eldest. When Joshua came along, life was a little busier with two but we still managed to get a fair amount of photos. Probably a more ‘normal’ amount of photos. Ha!

By the time Elsa, our third came along, I had been through two miscarriages and 4 years since I last had a baby to photograph, so we ended up with quite a lot of photos once again of our third baby.

However, once the twins came along and we had 5 children, 3 of them under 22 months of age including two newborns… well the photos dwindled a little. While the twins were still immobile, there were enough photos taken. Once they became mobile though, well… they decreased quite a bit and from about that point on, the photos came less frequently. I always had three little ones to keep track of, to hold hands with once they were walking, to carry when they couldn’t walk, etc.. There wasn’t really room for a purse to carry along, let alone a purse and camera. Even heading out the door to play in the yard, I was usually too busy helping toddlers down steps etc. to manage remembering to carry a camera to the back yard with me too!

Then came the age of digital cameras. The photos increased, however, actually having the photos printed out… that was a whole other story. I couldn’t begin to count how many printed photos I have of our first years of children. I could easily count how many printed photos I have of our children since digital cameras came into our lives.

How sad!

So when I read this post about these four sisters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/brown-sisters-photos-nicholas-nixon_n_3238922.html shortly after our sixth child arrived (Pieter, our adopted son), I realized what perfect timing it was to start our own yearly photo tradition!

I decided that since this year also marks FINALLY being in our homestead, the place my husband and I truly hope to live out our days, that we should find one spot to snap that photo every year too. A spot that would change through the years, just as the children would change. What better place, then our barn. The worn out beauty that she is. I love our barn, and felt it was the perfect back drop for our very first photo, and all those yet to come.

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This was one of my favorites. I could have kicked myself though, as my focus was off ever so slightly. Enough that I see it, and it bothers me a lot. But not enough to not love the photo. It shows each of the kids character so well. In the “Browns” photo project, the sisters didn’t really smile and I thought that was some what endearing, however, I truly want each of my kids personalities to shine in the photos I choose for our project. I think I captured it with the shot above.

A side benefit of our photo project, the outtakes. The above is actually one of those. We were initially going with ‘no smiles’. My kids do NOT like to be photographed, except for Pieter. So I promised they didn’t have to do any ‘posing’ and to just be natural and not worry about a perfect smile etc.. However, after the photoshoot, I have a feeling the favorite shot will most likely be one of the outtakes each year.

Here’s another outtake from as we were setting up.

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And another.

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I know that over the years, this project could become some what difficult as the children get older and possibly some will move away etc. and everyone will get busy heading in their own separate directions. We’ll do our best though, to get together once a year at the back of our old barn, and snap a photo.

How about you? Do you have a photo tradition of any sort?