This morning, a mom and a gang of kids leapt out of the car in not typical Saturday morning attire. First (in Saturday uniform-hoodie and pajamas) thought:
How are they out here dressed up looking so pristine this early?
Then it became clear.
The lights. The drapes. The carefully arranged backdrop nestled among the foliage.
A fall family photo shoot.
Mom was rushing ahead with the kids, presumably trying to keep everybody clean, coordinated, and cooperative long enough to capture the magic.
Dad?
Hmmm…Dad was bringing up the rear, back at the mini van, blowing enormous plumes of smoke like a Greyhound leaving Port Authority.
Now THAT'S the family portrait I want to see.
Not because there's anything particularly scandalous about Dad smoking, but because it was so damn human.
We live in an era of curated family portraiture. Social media is practically a museum of coordinated colors, denim and chambray, perfect lighting, affectionate embraces, and children who never argue over shotgun or snacks.
Listen, we love a beautiful family photo.
Photographs are fascinating because they reveal so much while simultaneously concealing a lot when we look at the surface.
A skilled observer can notice eyes, expression, posture, tension, proximity, even the subtle choreography of relationships.
Sometimes even what happened five minutes before the shutter clicked. Or what happens five minutes afterward.
In medicine, laboratory tests, imaging, and diagnostic studies can be like still photographs. In education, report cards, IEP updates and tests, same.
They capture information in a moment.
Your actual life, however, is a movie.
A moving, changing, complicated production influenced by infinite embedded moments, actions, experiences, relationships, environment, emotions, and millions of invisible variables.
A snapshot may be accurate without telling the whole truth.
That's why context matters. Patterns matter. What happens between the pictures matters.
And sometimes the most revealing image isn't the beautifully composed portrait.
It's the dad standing twenty feet behind the production, smoking a 7am spliff while everybody else is cheesing and primping for the money shot.
Life is what actually happens between the picture perfect frames.