MEMORIES OF HOME

Can we talk about this picture for a sec?

This photo of my dad holding me and my brother in our kitchen at home in Marine Park, Brooklyn was taken in 1977. It’s one of my all time favorite photos, ever. My mom is the photographer, as evidenced by the angle.  At five-foot-two, she would have been backed up against the kitchen table to get this familiar perspective of my six-foot-six dad.  So, by my oft-used definition of who’s “present” in a photo, we’re all here.

This kitchen is where SO many of my childhood memories take place.  Camera right is the big refrigerator, atop which my dad would perch my brother or me when he wanted to have an eye-to-eye conversation.  Behind the photographer is the little breakfast nook – a small table and two benches upholstered in bright yellow vinyl – where my mom served most of the meals of my entire childhood.  The yellow rotary wall telephone was mounted above a shelf between the refrigerator and  the kitchen table – the many hours I spent on the phone as a teen took place while I reclined on one of those yellow benches.

This house, and this kitchen especially, are the setting for most of my dreams of childhood.

There’s a lot I love about this photo, but I’m talking about it today mostly because it’s illustrative of why I LOVE photos inside homes.  We all know that kids grow up and that people change as they grow older.  Our homes change, too.  We left that house in 1987, and I doubt those wallpaper daisies (with a silver metallic background that’s hard to appreciate in the photo) are still there.  But they’ll live forever in my memories, and the edges of those memories are sharper because of this photograph.

I’ve said it a million times before but today I’m saying it again – photos in your (unfinished, messy, perfectly decorated, covered in moving boxes, under construction, needing a paint job, covered in Anna and Elsa stickers) HOME hold a value that photos in a park could never, ever touch.

Remember this was beautiful.

Thanks for looking,

~Jaye

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Jaye McLaughlin Photography specializes in documentary style lifestyle family and newborn photography in Westchester County, NYC, Southern Connecticut and beyond.  I would love to begin planning your family photo session. View more of my work in my family portfolio HERE.  Check out some brand new sweetness in my newborn portfolio HERE. If you’re interested in a family, newborn or maternity session and would like to learn more, click HERE.  To get in touch, just go HERE, or email me or call me directly at jaye@jayemclaughlin.com or 914.263.0236.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks for looking,

~Jaye