If being a mom for nine years has taught me anything, it's that all that heart-stopping, gut-wrenching, throw-yourself-in-front-of-a-train love you feel for your tiny baby the minute it arrives only gets deeper as the days and months and years go by, and as far as I can tell, that never lets up, never goes away; just gets deeper and more rooted like some grand, gnarled oak tree.

Families grow and change and branch and plant seedlings of their own, and although my first photographic love will always be the more photojournalistic-style portraits I usually make, large family portraits certainly have their (important) place as well. One shouldn't miss the forest for the trees, after all...

xox,

Annemie