Someday Mac will grow up. It's something I turn over in my head every time I take photos of a baby. Will this be the picture that gets copied 30 times and every aunt and cousin gets one in the mail? I better get an honest moment, his true expression, in case it ends up being the picture that defines for him what he was like as a baby. Maybe it will pop up over and over in every photo album... until all of a sudden he's 30 and it doesn't anymore. After everyone has cleared out their albums and he's finally found a desire to reconnect with his past he might ask his mom what photos she's got stashed away. Maybe she'll pull out one of mine and he will realize that it's one of the images of his childhood that gives definition to his personality in some small way... "You were always such a pensive baby, with flashes of joy between looks of deep thought."

I can't wait for the babies in my photos to age, to photograph them again and again and see how their personalities evolve and if there are remnants of their baby-selves bundled into those personalities. Will Mac be a pensive person with flashes of joy? Or will he evolve into an out-going joker who smiles all the time?

Watching someone grow up is one of our chief life lessons. It is only after doing so that we can understand our own beginnings, and the way that our parents see us.

Mac, just a few weeks old — Mac, just a few weeks old