The latest buzzword for me at the moment is "seeing". Truly seeing.

It's so easy to find ourselves in a place where we stop paying attention. I call it robot mode. I'm sure you've been there. Driving home from the office and suddenly you are pulling into your driveway and you don't even remember how you got there.

This happens in photography all the time. Once we are able to capture a certain type of shot it's easy to lose sight of everything else and everything else is often where all the beauty lies.

There are gorgeous moments everywhere you just have to make time to see them. Here's to looking a little deeper in 2007!

Some recent "seeing":

Years ago, during the prep call of one of my very first pro portrait sessions, the mom asked if we could sneak in a few family shots during her son's 1 year portrait appointment. I said OK, but let her know that family work really wasn't my thing, but I would do my best.

What did I know about family portraiture? I thought.

I naively hadn't considered that as something I would do or even be asked to do as a children's photographer. Wake up, right? Anyway, I saw that type of work as a mystery. I wasn't a fan of the staged shot where everyone is matchy-matchy pretending to be this perfect stereotype. There's nothing real about that. Nothing special.

I arrived as usual with no plan and while we were making introductions and exchanging pleasantries the family was playing around with their child and I got chills. Giant, life-inspiring, goosebumps. There was so much love, so much admiration. I started shooting that instant with the family completely unaware their session had started.

When I came home I told my husband that I found a family for us to adopt. This is no joke. But then the next day and the day after that and pretty much every session I've had since the same thing happens. I see this love, this wonderful captivating love that begs to be captured.

A few family shots that snuck into yesterday's session...