Photography has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, but I don’t think I understood how important it was to me until I became a mom.

Over the years, it has been a creative outlet, a way to process what I’m feeling, and at times, something I’ve genuinely leaned on for my mental health. After having my first son, especially, picking up my camera gave me somewhere to put all of the complicated emotions that came with becoming a mother. It helped me slow down, notice what was right in front of me, and hold onto pieces of a season that seemed to be disappearing almost as quickly as it arrived.

The funny thing is, apparently I knew photography would be part of my life long before I understood any of that.

A childhood friend recently dug up an old preschool yearbook, and inside was a page where each of us had been asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. I bet you can guess my answer…

There are also photos of four-year-old me wearing one of those plastic toy cameras around my neck, constantly pretending to photograph my family.

So maybe becoming a photographer wasn’t exactly a surprise. It just took me about 30 years to come to my senses and be brave enough to actually do it.

Photography continued to follow me as I got older. My favorite elective in high school was photography, where I learned the basics of the exposure triangle, composition, lighting, and film development. Thank you, Mr. Harrison. I was completely hooked and eventually chose film photography and darkroom developing for my senior project.

Fun fact: I turned my family’s bathroom into a makeshift darkroom. It wasn’t glamorous, but watching an image slowly appear on paper felt like magic.

And then, naturally, I graduated from high school and pursued a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical and Chemical Hydrology.

Obviously.

How does a kid who wanted to become a photographer end up studying water science?

Growing up in a very rural and beautiful part of Northern California gave me a deep appreciation for the natural world. Studying environmental science and doing some small part to protect this incredible planet felt meaningful and practical.

But the truth is, I don’t think becoming a professional photographer ever occurred to me as a realistic option. Photography was something I loved, but in my mind it was a hobby. Professional photography seemed like one of those careers a handful of lucky people, mostly wedding photographers, somehow managed to make work.

So I followed the practical path instead.

After college, I worked for a small environmental nonprofit. Later, I worked at a law firm in a San Francisco skyscraper. Neither felt quite right, and for a while I assumed the answer was simply to keep trying different jobs until something finally clicked.

Then a couple of friends who knew how much I loved photography purchased a small business and asked if I would photograph their products.

My answer was an immediate yes. I got to work, and Corinna Black Photography was born.

An early photograph from my time working as a product photographer for Shepherd’s Dream LLC in Ashland, Oregon.

But the biggest shift came later, after I met my husband and we had our two boys. Photography stopped being simply something creative that I enjoyed. It became much more personal.

I struggled with pretty severe postpartum depression after having my first son, and taking pictures of him became a kind of therapy for me. Motherhood made me intensely aware of how quickly everything changes. Babies become toddlers. Round cheeks disappear. Tiny hands get bigger. The funny expressions and mannerisms you think you’ll remember forever somehow become difficult to picture just a few years later.

My boys are now 8 and 5, and there are already so many little details about their baby years that I know I wouldn’t remember clearly if I hadn’t photographed them.

One of my favorite photographs of my boys. Gah. They don’t look like this anymore.

Taking pictures became my way of paying attention. It was my way of saying, this is happening, this matters, remember this.

And eventually I realized that was what I wanted to give other families too.

I’m certainly not the only mom who feels the strange heartbreak of watching her children grow while simultaneously being grateful that they’re growing. We’re all trying to absorb these ordinary little seasons while we’re living inside of them, often tired, distracted, overstimulated, and wondering how another year disappeared so quickly.

That’s why family photography means something different to me now. It isn’t really about creating a perfectly styled family or getting everyone to smile at the camera at exactly the same time. It’s about helping people slow down long enough to notice what is already there: the way your child reaches for you, the way your family laughs together, the little expressions and relationships that make this particular season yours.

I want your photographs to remind you of more than what everyone looked like. I want them to remind you what being together felt like.

Years from now, I hope you look at your images and feel something. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s gratitude. Maybe it’s that strange ache that comes with realizing just how much has changed.

Because ultimately, that’s what photographs have done for me.

Sometimes I wish the four-year-old version of me could have nudged the eighteen-year-old version and said, Just go for it.

But I also think taking the longer road is part of why I see this work the way I do now.

If you’re looking for a Jacksonville family photographer who values connection, natural light, honest moments, and photographs that actually mean something to you, I would love to document this season of your family.