I’m Janae, the photographer behind These Days Photography. I think like an engineer, I see like an artist, and I feel like a mother.
You're part of this too.
Documentary family photographer —
Alexandria, VA and the Washington, DC region.
Meet Janae
I’m a parent. I know how easy it is to disappear from your own photos.
Not intentionally
Just, slowly.
Somewhere between kid’s birthdays, family reunions, the major holidays and dance recitals, things start to get missed —
And then one day, you realize you’re not in any of the photos.
I started it because I was missing from my own story.
I didn't start this because I love photography.
I like to do hard things, just because they are hard
2
I grew up in the Florida Keys and lived a very Jimmy Buffet life.
3
My preferred method of commuting is by bike
4
I'm a minimalist. I think I have read most of the minimalism books available!
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Tap photos to learn more!
Collects pottery.
Scared to fly.
Parralel parks any car.
She/her
Not one photo of all of us together as a family of 4.
Not because I didn’t care. Because no one was documenting me in it.
To my horror, I did not have one.
When my oldest was four, his preschool asked for a family photo.
You know the feeling: taking kids out for a neighborhood bike ride just to end up with your hands loaded up with the bikes that kids no longer feel like riding, a crying baby on your hip, and your last remaining finger gripping the dog leash. Last thing I can do is worry about photos.
TO FIND THE TIME (OR FREE HANDS) TO DOCUMENT OUR MOMENTS.
OVERWHELMED
ONCE I HAD KIDS OF MY OWN, I WAS TOO
I'm an Alexandria-based documentary photographer serving families across Northern Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC. I document families as they actually are — not the version they think they're supposed to be — so it's easy for you to be in the frame.
Because the last thing you need is a to-do list 20 tasks deep before even considering booking a session.
THESE DAYS, YOU GET TO BE THE HERO OF YOUR PHOTOS
I'm an engineer by training. I spent years thinking in structure and precision, and I bring both to work that is, by design, anything but staged. What I make isn't a photoshoot. It's a record — of who your family is, in a year you don't get back.
I am not chasing a curated aesthetic — I’m after photos that mean something and I know how to do it artfully.
I am not interested in asking you to perform a perfect version of your life in a distant field at golden hour. You can hire anyone for that.
I am looking for the profound beauty in the reality you already inhabit. The geometry of your kitchen floor when the toys are scattered. The specific way your child holds your hand. The unpolished, un-styled truth of your days.
Motherhood ruined "perfect" for me. In the best possible way.
Popsicles in the backyard.
A walk to the playground.
Dress-up from the kid’s closet.
Building the tallest magnet-tile tower possible and knocking it down.
Skateboarding in the driveway.
A trip to the coffee shop.
Let's capture all the things that take exactly zero planning.
Because the special parts about your family don’t need planning to be worth capturing.
it's something you actually enjoy
The session isn't something you "get through" —
- Everyone wears what they want.
- We stay where your life actually happens.
- You do what you’d normally do.
Instead:
None of that makes a photo matter....
- No obsessing over outfits or locations
- No inconvenient pilgrimage to a distant field
- No convincing dad
- No bribes or rewards for cooperative behavior
We're getting rid of what keeps you out of photos:
Here’s the version of me you don’t get in the headshots. I live an unaesthetic life — and I think that's the point.
My uncurated life
For those who want to stay a while
My own family, on film
There should be Diet Coke.
There is no Diet Coke.
We drank it all in moments of weakness.
Instead,
three gallons of milk stand guard
because my daughter’s primary fuel
is chocolate milk and pancakes.
We lineup leftovers,
undeniable evidence of the time spent cooking
meals that no child ate.
We keep them anyway.
Like sad plastic trophies of parenting,
Proof that we really, really tried.
They sit stacked next to a small tub
of live worms,
Worms destined for fishing.
Worms who frankly,
are the only ones in this house
who actually want to eat the leftovers.
If you opened my fridge
You’d see us outside.
Kids tearing through the yard,
in and out of the house,
Kids soaked from the garden hose
because they were washing rocks.
Highly valuable,
extremely ordinary rocks,
they’ll later stash somewhere inside.
The reason
for the holes in all our pockets.
Each one special,
in their own version of ordinary.
So I own them, (forever) now,
Just….. so many rocks.
A trip to the garden center
ending with three new plants
we’re optimistic about
and completely unqualified
to keep alive.
An evening at Lake Cook
Casting lines.
I don’t do fishing,
and I definitely don’t do worms.
But that’s what dads are for.
Greek takeout on the drive home.
Because on a perfect day,
I won’t have to cook.
It would look like a really good day.
And it is.
Just with a meltdown over shoes,
and a blanket tucked in the wrong way,
tears because someone copied someone else,
and hostage level negotiations over a bath.
Three rejected meals,
and at least one kid insisting they’re still hungry
from the food
they didn’t eat.
If you saw us on a perfectly normal day…
You’d find a bin of clothes
from a life before kids.
I keep them
for the smaller version of me,
who had the time and energy
to care about that.
She’s not gone.
She just looks a little different now.
I keep them for “someday.”
We all know
that day isn’t coming.
Don’t tell that to my ego.
It’s still coming to terms
with elastic waistbands.
If you SAW UNDER MY BED
It boldly say “Engineer!”
in a highly professional,
bullet-pointed font.
Structure, logic,
Perfection.
But capturing life by photo
is the work I actually love.
Untame, emotional,
Imperfection.
I don’t rush it.
I take on fewer families
on purpose.
Because this matters too much
to treat it like volume.
According to my resume
You would know,
my memories are more temporary than yours.
I have memory loss.
Most of my life doesn’t live in my head,
the way yours might..
It lives in fragments.
Facts.
Things I (sometimes) know happened,
but cannot actually picture anymore.
So I live in the now.
Which mostly means
I don’t hold a grudges
because I simply cannot remember
why I was mad.
I don’t take photos for Instagram.
I take them because
they’re the only way
to hold onto my life.
Proof
that any of this
actually happened.
If you knew my like a friend
Growing up in the Florida Keys
was a sun-soaked Jimmy Buffet song.
Which is why my Christmas lights
always go up with
Mele Kalikimaka and a margarita.
Barefoot in the streets,
Swimming feral in the ocean,
Between mangroves
no one watching too closely,
(except the needlefish)
with zero photographic evidence.
Which is why
you’ll only find this solitary dance recital shot.
(I peaked early in that outfit)
This is an anthem to bring back
the 80’s childhood,
… Just with more photos.
I lost my dad in my twenties,
and my mother
hates the camera lens.
A feeling I now
can certainly relate to.
So there isn’t much
to go back to.
Photos are like that.
You don’t realize
how much they matter
until they’re all you have.
So take the photo,
Even if your hair looks weird
(Especially).
The childhood i barely have photos of
You’d find a woman
who feels completely lost
most days.
Missing the hobbies
I used to hold.
In place,
I hold a handful of rocks.
Trying to remember what I like,
outside of everyone else.
Wondering why this body feels
so foreign,
and not totally in love with the marks
motherhood gave me.
Consumed by my kids’ needs,
and somehow
still loving them more.
But fundamentally.
Deeply.
Never wanting to cook another
single.
meal.
ever.
again.
Figuring it out as I go,
forever whispering “what in the actual F*ck,”
Fueled by caffeinated soda,
mild panic,
and unpredictable decluttering rages,
just like everyone else.
