Family Photos

In my line of work, I see a lot of houses. A lot of houses, folks, and I am often paraded past the “wall of cheese” in the entry or stairway on the way to the living room for a design consultation. I see the sweet, angelic faces of children sitting in their Sunday best, with nary a ketchup stain or cowlick, brightening the frame with their stellar forced smiles. I then see said children running past me, showing more character in their spiderman jammies and looks of amusement as they chase younger siblings than could ever be conveyed in the stoic portrait. “Sigh….. those kids”, the parent will say. What the parents don’t realize is that twenty years from now, they will remember the spiderman incident far more clearly in their minds than the two minutes of apparent bliss in the totally staged Olan Mills photo.

The “wall of cheese” has become an American necessity in homes as a marker of time and growth of our families, but I encourage you to look at the wall with a different intent: kill the cheese. Tell Olan Mills and their trite backgrounds to shove it. Instead, choose to intentionally remember the cool stuff about your kids: the little twisted grin, the totally-sacked-out-sleeping pose, the first bike road rash, the candid life stuff. Walking past a wall of photos that have meaning and celebrates the individuality of your children and family is far more satisfying than the formal requisite school pictures. In fact, when you use candid photos, framing isn’t an act of decorating: it’s an act of love. Love your wall of cheese, folks. Please.