Punam Bean Photography (observations)

People hire me, for the most part, as they are embarking on some momentous occasion in their lives – a wedding, a new baby, a right of passage. But when the wedding is long past, and the babies are no longer babies, usually what is left is a family. I offer Family Documentary Sessions, to capture exactly who your family is at this exact moment, without apology. Siblings have complex relationships, with their parents, with each other, with the order of things. Daughters have ugly dolls that mothers can’t stand, and sons can and will climb anything they can manage. Two people who love each other became a family of four, and these Family Documentary sessions are not about proving that they were all here together. There isn’t much looking at the camera and smiling here. It’s a day for everyone to be themselves, to create images mostly for their children to look back on and remember their relationships, their love, their giggles, their quarrels. Their family. I am grateful that this family trusted me with that task.

3 hours in New York City with the Singh Family. Running, jumping, tumbling, climbing, exploring, protecting, fighting, laughing, crying.

This past 4th of July came and went, on the down low. In this first year of Uma’s life, the typical fare for holidays and celebrations are taking a back seat to just spending time as a family as we might have any other day of the week. That, and my tireless efforts to get my sweet baby girl on a schedule where she wakes up before 8am (and not around 1pm as she had done for the better part of her life – VERY hard to get anything done!), all social time shuts down at 6pm (It takes about 3 HOURS to get her to sleep for the night). We can be more flexible with this notion once she is older and we can tell her who’s in charge, and she can understand – but my priority at the moment is getting her circadian rhythms in line with my general life goals. One of the major ones being : WAKE UP BEFORE 8AM. And so! time is so much shorter than ever these days, so much more fleeting (she started CRAWLING yesterday at 5 MONTHS), that it went by without a timely mention on the blog.

8 Years ago, on July 4th, late in the evening, I fell in love with a man with pale eyes and a friendly smile. 8 years ago fireworks had nothing to do with the 4th of July, and because of that moment I now have a daughter. That love can create a whole person who lives and breathes, who will soon love, who is incredibly loved, still blows my mind on a daily basis. This girl is here because of a chance meeting at a bar in Queens. This beautiful girl. I didn’t have the best childhood, and that I now have this beautiful girl in my arms, I am armed with that old heartache to make SURE she KNOWS she is LOVED. Family has never meant more to me than now.

Last month, we boarded a plane to embark on a 3 week long road trip from New York City to North Carolina, to which end she would be welcomed into the fold of the Haney family (Huz’s mother’s family), and I learned, I am not alone in my quest to make her know that she can do anything because she is loved. Andrew’s mother has been known to say that every baby should have a chance to be a part of this family, and I couldn’t agree more. I am grateful for knowing that between my dearest Husbone, and his family, there will be no doubt in her mind that she. is. loved.

And so, Uma’s very first family vacation, as photographed by Huz and me! Aww and that little spot on her nose is from sleeping on her tummy, and rubbing her nose on the sheets so hard she got a blister!