My daughter is now 12. She is growing up and she is growing up fast, just like your children. From a tiny baby to a crawling infant, to a wobbly toddler, to an ‘I-can-draw-anything’ preschooler, to a first grader, second grader, and now a ‘dad-can-I-have-my-own-time’ young lady. They don’t wait for us to grow up, they just continue, whether while we are busy at work or lazing around at home.

The need to spend time with our children as they are growing up goes without saying, but may I also remind you to take photographs of them, please. Take plenty of photographs of them. Not just their own portrait, but also images of their interactions with you, their grandparents, other family members, their friends and whatever they like to do or play. Even their toys, shoes, clothes, things they own.

You should be your children’s best photographer as you are with them most of the time. You have access to immortalise the memories of them growing up in the form of photographs.

I am currently working on a personal project that I call “Your First 12 Years”. Among other memories I have collected of my daughter, over the years, photographs of her filled my computer hard drives the most. These memories will go into a book, prints and video. Will share more as I am making progress with it.

So, just to inspire you, hopefully, below is a much shorter version of one of the videos I am producing for my daughter. It’s a 1 minute video of images the day she was born.

Keep taking pictures, everyone! Bring out your camera, any camera, whatever camera in your pocket!