The Family Archive

I dreamt up something new over the winter and I’m really proud it… a different way for my families to access portraits. It's a membership that includes a full-length session each year and so many awesome perks, paid for over the course of that year. It saves money, makes scheduling more convenient, and most importantly, helps to build a visual record of family life over time. 

I’ve been obsessed with this idea for so long and, as I put it together, I began delving into why. I think the first day of spring is as good a time as any to send it out into the world! I’ll be opening the membership for a couple weeks each year, to people I’ve worked with in the past.

I hope you enjoy the story behind The Family Archive…

My mom has this massive wicker box of photographs. It spills over with images from most of my childhood and part of my ancestry… piles of glossy 4x6 prints from the local one hour photomat underneath tintypes and those still-vibrant Kodachrome prints with bent corners.

A faded 3.5x5 of me clutching my first camera. My brother perfecting his skateboard tricks in the driveway. My sister’s garden-tomato-stained toddler belly. The one and only time we went for an in-studio portrait… a neighborhood kid had just cut my sister’s hair and for some mysterious reason (the 90’s), we’re all in matching denim.

A snapshot from my mom and stepdad’s Tahoe elopement. You can see the yellow and black strap of my mom’s Nikon looped around her wrist. A sort of wedding bouquet. Later on, that camera took nearly every picture in the basket. These photographs are the stuff of family lore. Mostly candid and often underexposed. Irreplaceable and precious.

After years of random trips down memory lane there’s no rhyme or reason to the order of the prints. A giant basket is hard to organize… and honestly that’s perfect for my family. It’s nice to float through the memories, back and forth in time. To see lost teeth smiles and new back-to-school clothes alongside grandparent visits, summer roadtrips, and disgruntled looking newborns.

Cousins all lined up under the apple blossom trees on Benicia Drive… my grandma and her childhood pet chicken next to a mirror selfie of my mom, 8 months pregnant with my brother. My great aunt Della, who I never met but dream about all the time.

It’s not lost on me that this unruly print collection was a massive catalyst for my love of photography. I can’t believe I found a line of work that speaks so clearly to my obsession with time and relationship.

At it's heart, that's what The Family Archive is about… visualizing our closest connections and the passage of time.

I’ve been trying to find a way to give this gift to the families I photograph year after year. Honestly it's taken me forever to find the answer. I knew for sure it needed to be a more elegant and organized version of the big family-photo-basket. Not everyone wants to dive into the kind of chaos my family enjoys. But this isn’t the easiest idea to put into “sales language”… and that’s not really my thing anyhow. I prefer the long and winding stories. ;)

So I’ll leave you with a link to sign up for my newsletter (since that’ll be the place membership signups are announced each time) and tell you that I’m here for any questions. Last but not least, 10% of all membership fees will be donated each year to an organization helping children and families. All members will have the chance to vote on which one… because any projects about family life should benefit family life and we're all in this together. 

I hope you love the offering and idea behind it as much as I do!

Xoxo, Meg