Family memorabilia is something I've always been fond of, but loathe to spend a lot of time creating. I've never been one for the scrapbooking movement, composing pages and carefully arranging special papers and whatnot. Instead, I pepper my albums (if any) with photographs, (obviously) and my hand-written notes.

This album chronicles my daughter's first year of life. I gave myself the parameter of "first year," so that the album would have a clear narrative and an ending. After one year Ruth is no less a member of the family than she was before, but I felt comfortable folding in her photos to the general family album. This also leaves me with a do-able goal for each child as he or she comes along.

I guess I felt like sharing this on my studio blog because it shows that there's so much more to photography than something you see on the screen. Photographs become the things that your children and your children's children use to learn about themselves and their history. I loved looking at photographs of my parents when they were young; it made them so much more interesting and human.

I made sure to save a few keepsakes, but didn't overthink it.

I gladly wrote out the birth story, and spent a little extra time making it special.

The rest of the book is made up of cards given to us, as well as a photo of her from each month--something simple that I think I can easily repeat with the next kid.

I hope one day to hand this over to Ruth when she gets older as a keepsake. It probably took me just a few hours of my time, and it's so much fun to look through again and again. For me, the album was a lesson in how a little simple planning (document the first year, mostly using photos) can make something lasting and beautiful.