You're robbing yourself of memories.

Remember when you just had the most chaotic day at work, you were emotionally and physically exhausted, your hair was a mess, only a smidge of makeup remained intact as you headed to you child's school award ceremony? They won an award and wanted to take a picture with you, but you declined. You felt a hot mess minus the hot part. You snapped some photos of your child holding up their plaque and posted them on Facebook, all proud.

Or how about that family vacation? You were playing in the sand, your husband whipped out the camera to get some action shots of little Johnny splashing you with water, and you ran away like the grim reaper was after you.

You weren't photo-ready, after all! You hadn't styled your hair, applied your makeup, and obviously were feeling "fluffy" because of all of the picnics/holidays/parties/vacation food...

Even if these exact scenarios don't apply to you, I'm sure you can relate. I know that I can! I've been there. I've dodged a photo, lots of them actually.

By doing so, I'm robbing myself and my family of memories. 30 years from now my kids won't be looking at photos of us playing together thinking "What was mom thinking not wearing mascara that day?!" or "Does she look a little bloated to you?". They would look at the photo and remember how much fun we had that day.

Being IN photos with my family and friends is something that I'm working on...and you should too.

These photos were taken immediately after day 3 of 10-hour shooting days while I was traveling to my hometown. The makeup that was left on my face was smudged and awful, I was pale from exhaustion and lack of calories, red wine stained my teeth after I just downed a glass of Malbec to wind down from a long day, and I had "travel pimples" (not sure what it is about flying, but I always break out). But you know what?? I will always cherish these images of myself with my sister (my mom actually- but you wouldn't believe that, would you?!), and my grandmother who is one of my favorite people in the world and is suffering from dimentia but is doing her best to keep on kickin'! I will always have these images and will remember her crazy personality, her awesome sense of style, and what she said to me that day. Are they out of focus? Yep. Bad composition? Yep. Give me a break, it was a selfie ;) But it's not important. They're some of my favorite images of all time.