It is seemingly impossible to take too many photos of your children, but it is possible to take too few. When I first picked up a camera I shot everything. All. The. Time. My camera seemed to be permanently positioned in front of my face. I have folder upon folder on my computer of photographs of my girls. Archived by year and then by month and sometimes even by event. Every year since 2009. But then I realized the other day that I don’t have one folder for 2013. No January. No February. No March.

I promised myself I would never stop shooting just because. But I did. I rarely pick my camera up anymore when I’m at home.

And I hate that. A lot.

Ferris Bueller once said that “life is pretty short. If you don’t stop to look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” So last Friday when I got home from work, I stopped and looked. I finally picked up a camera and started documenting my own life.

I needed  to remind myself that amidst documenting the life and love of others, and telling their stories, it’s important to tell my own story, too. I need to take more photographs, not because I’m getting paid or asked to, or because I’m traveling, or because I am in the perfect setting with the perfect light and the perfect editorial details, but just because.

Because I can’t not.

Even if it’s only in twenty frame increments, I have to see. I have to feel. I have to shoot.