The My Outdoorsy Mom Podcast

EP 32: Kiera Liu on Memory Keeping, Camera Rolls, and Capturing the Flecks of Gold

• Julianne Nienberg • Season 3 • Episode 32

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In this episode of The My Outdoorsy Mom Podcast, I’m joined by Kiera Liu, founder of Frame of Life, retired criminal defense attorney turned photographer, visual storyteller, and host of the Frame of Life Podcast.

Kiera’s work lives at the intersection of motherhood, storytelling, and legacy. In this conversation, we talk about why the small, ordinary moments matter so much, how parents can get more intentional about memory keeping, and how to stop letting thousands of photos sit untouched in the camera roll.

We also talk about postpartum survival, getting outside with kids, learning how to notice the “flecks of gold” in everyday life, and Kiera’s practical system for managing photos in a way that feels simple and actually doable.

This episode is for the mom who is always taking the photos… but rarely has a plan for what to do with them later.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Where to find Kiera:

Where to find me:

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the My Outdoors Z Mom Podcast. I'm Julianne, Mom of Three, Outdoor Play Advocate and the voice behind My Outdoor Z Mom. Here we talk about raising outdoor confident kids, the kind who build forts, explore creeks, solve problems, and grow into capable humans through real play and real adventure. Each week you'll hear conversations about outdoor play, childhood independence, family travel, and the simple rhythms that help kids thrive. If you want to raise kids who spend more time outside and less time on screens, you're in the right place. Let's get outside. Today's guest is Kira Liu, the founder of Frame of Life. Kira is a retired criminal defense attorney, turned photographer, and visual storyteller who now helps brands and families document their lives in more meaningful ways. She's also the host of the Reframed by Frame of Life podcast, where she explores storytelling, intentional memory keeping, and how we organize and preserve the moments that make up our lives. Kira lives in Boston with her husband, two kids, and their English cream Golden Retriever, and her work sits right at the intersection of motherhood, entrepreneurship, and legacy building. What I love about Kira's perspective is that she reminds us that the small, ordinary moments in our lives are actually the stories that matter most. Kira, welcome to the My Outdoorsy Mom podcast.

SPEAKER_01

You're amazing. I love that intro. It's so sweet, and it's really true. Like it's we're all at the intersection of it as we live, and it's really hard to juggle some days, but we're here to talk about all of it today.

SPEAKER_00

All of it. And you have such an interesting professional journey. I I don't think I knew that you were a criminal defense attorney when we met, but I read that in your bio and I thought, wait a minute, that is new to me. So from criminal defense attorney to photographer and storyteller, what led you to make that pivot?

SPEAKER_01

Isn't that funny? I know a lot of people don't know that about me when they first meet me. It's kind of like my zinger of the story twist. Um, but I started out as someone who was always passionate about storytelling. And I wanted to be both a photographer and a lawyer when I was little. And I got my way all the way into law school, passed two bar exams, then the market crashed and there were no jobs. And the only job I could get was a criminal defense attorney. I gave it all of myself and it really drained me completely. And it was really, really tough. Like it was a tougher job than I think anybody expects when you are handling pre people at the worst point in their lives and you're really trying to help them out. And I burnt out very quickly watching the system really how it works and how it functions to really hold people down. And I couldn't bring my ray of light to it as much as I had hoped and dreamed. And I remember my husband coming to me. He's like, I know you as someone who finds light and joy and makes people feel better. And you are just miserable and stressed. And what are you doing to yourself? There's no reason to kill yourself here. Why don't you go back and follow your passion with photography? He encouraged me to take a step back and really it at the time it was very scary to do, you know, like to step back from a big legal career, but I wasn't making that much money anyway. And I was like, you know what? This is killing me. I might as well go do something I love. So he he encouraged me and helped me get here.

SPEAKER_00

And so you mentioned that getting outside and walking helped you survive postpartum. Was that something that you incorporated when you had that season as a criminal defense attorney? And can you tell us more a little bit about that season of life and how kind of finding these small moments, as you say, did that bring back joy to you?

SPEAKER_01

So when I was a criminal defense attorney, this is well before kids and even actually before marriage. So I retired at the age of 26 or 27, I think. It's like ridiculous how young I was. Um, I only made it two years as a criminal defense attorney. So um back then I really didn't get outside. I had no means of getting out beyond the books and the law text and trying to dive deep into all of my cases. And I had 112 cases at one time, and it was a lot, and I just never had that release to get out. Um, so photography gave me that once I did step into it, and I got to work with a lot of families and encouraging them to get out and document their lives. And all of our sessions were based on having fun outside. They weren't the stuffy posed inside a studio photo shoots. They were lifestyle driven and helping families find ways to connect. And I encouraged muddy boots and I encouraged people to get throw their kids up in the air and run and chase them outside and make some really fun memories with that when we were doing a lot of the family side of the photography. That I was getting outside a lot more for, and it really helped bring me back to life. During postpartum, that's a whole different ball of wax. It was really the only way I could survive was getting outside. It was like the the absolute only way. And I had my firstborn in January in the city of Boston, and it was slushy and muddy and like full of snow and really hard to get out some days. But every single day we got out and I'd walk the dog and push the stroller and carry it back up 35 steps up my brownstone. And it was like just the way I could survive it was moving my body and getting outside.

SPEAKER_00

When I hear you talk about family photography, I always think family photographers are heaven sent because if you've ever had a family photo session done, you know that as a mom, it's kind of it can be stressful leading up to it because depending on how you want your photos to be, you know, a lot of times moms start out envisioning everyone in their nicest outfits and no one's getting dirty, and mom is running around sweating, or at least in my experience. And as more time went on and the more kids that I had, I just started letting my kids wear whatever they wanted that was clean. You know, if it got dirty and muddy during the session, that was completely fine. But I always found that the more casual my kids dressed, the better the photos turned out because they were in their element. And I think a lot of parents feel that kind of pressure, whether it's a photo session or creating memories for their kids, they have this pressure to create big memories like vacations, activities, and you know, kind of having these perfectly curated moments. And your work, what I love about it is that just as the way you described your photography, you're celebrating the everyday. So why do you think the small moments matter so much?

SPEAKER_01

I think the small moments matter so much because you can take the pressure off of everything. And just like you're describing, I think we think about it when we spend all this money on a fancy photo shoot, which I think we should all do because it's a really good time to get us in front of the camera and get the moms in the picture and get everybody together at one time for some pictures that we can actually capture together. But we put all this pressure on it because it costs hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars. We get scared and it's like really hard to like let go in those moments. But when you start to embrace the small moments and you document the small moments, you see how much magic happens in that. And it makes it easier to let go when you have the bigger shoots. Like it's you're you show up as you because you know that you're creating a small moment with a little bit more fluff with somebody else helping capture it instead of it just being this is the end all be all kind of thing. So I think it's a really nice way to approach it and it helps you get through the daily slog too. Like if we're not talking about the Christmas card photo shoot every year, like if we're talking about the every day when the kids come home and they melt down and then you let them go outside, but then you notice that they're playing together and you go outside with your phone and you're like taking pictures of it because you're like, wow, they're so cute, they're doing it. Like that's where I get filled up.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's so important too. I heard you say a couple of things. We have had a couple of different family photographers, but when you spend money and you invest in family photography and you find a photographer that your family just jives with, that you can build a relationship with over the years, they are so gifted, as I'm sure you are with your clients, that you're capturing this these little moments of your kids playing outside that mom might not have seen, you know, like the family photographer has ways of pulling your kids' personalities out that sometimes mom and dad don't really see, or sometimes it's a little bit different when you're behind the camera. And I love those moments and those pictures where my kids are just truly in their element and someone else has captured it in its true and raw form. And it's not me doing the work, right? Because if it's me, I'm having to capture them really, you know, it's it's very rare and they're not smiling these days for pictures. But I love that, you know, family photographers are so gifted in pulling some of these just like nuggets out of my kids that I'm like, okay, well, I know you can smile for a camera, but one of the things that you talked about in your questionnaire, yeah, exactly. You created a process called daily delights. Walk me through that and help me, as like a busy mom or the busy parents and busy moms that are listening, help us understand how we can use a process like this to manage our camera role. Because I'm gonna ask you, okay, my camera role, my storage is embarrassing. Like, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours. Like, how many photos do you have on your camera roll?

SPEAKER_01

Hmm, it's a great question. So I actually just looked yesterday. I don't actually care how many photos are on your camera roll. I think the more the better. That means that you're showing up and witnessing your life and you're documenting your life. And our cameras are designed to hold a lot more now. So my number is 37,000 that I saw on there. It's not all my photos. My photos are everywhere else. And there was a long period of time that I didn't trust iCloud and I didn't have a lot of my photos backed up on there. And kind of a bummer that I didn't lean into it then because I don't have more pictures from even 2020 when I had my second son. I don't have um a lot of pictures from him because I was scared of the cloud. But so I'm like all for embracing your camera roll and using it as a tool to help you reflect on some of the memories that you have. And um, I would love to talk to you a little bit about how I go through and keep the ones that matter the most pulling up more with my daily delights method.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. So I will tell I I was happy to hear your number because I think I'm sitting at 38,000. And I am your ideal client for your resources because a lot of it is work too, and the fact that I work in social media, but I am the mom, I I get nice shots of my kids. I get nice portraits, I get the little daily things that I know later on I'm gonna be so glad. And my kids, one of their favorite things is when we sit down on the couch and we go through my camera roll or we actually go through the home videos that I've created of those little moments. And they're not sometimes if it's a vacation family video, it's 15, 20 minutes. But a lot of times it's these little clips that I've collected and they're, you know, a couple minutes long, but I'm behind several years on capturing those moments. So tell us about how you help manage, how you help busy moms like me manage my camera role.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. So I learned this trick during the throws of postpartum with my firstborn, was like I had her in 2018, and I just remember being so overwhelmed by the transition to motherhood and seeing all of the moments go so fast. Because you hear everyone say that all the time, like the moments to enjoy the moments when they're little, they go so fast, they'll be so old so soon. And it just like brought the pressure so much higher to me as a new mom. And I I was witnessing every single day. I'm like, now you're walking and you're only like, how old are you? Why are you walking already? Like you just started to see how incredibly fast time flew. And I was taking pictures of all of it. And I what I found at night is I would instead of going through Instagram and Doom scrolling, because that was just making my anxiety so much higher. I would open up my camera roll as my Instagram and I would use that to go through the day. And suddenly, as I was going through and selecting all of my favorites by just putting a heart on the ones that I loved the most out of them, like like which one wasn't blurry, which was the best of the like 15 shots of her like gobbling up yogurt, which one did I like the most? Like just would pick one really quick, and then I would zoom out and delete all the rest that weren't hearted. And what happened was once I looked back at it, I would scroll through the camera roll and it would only be hearted photos and it would just be my daily delights, is what I started to call them. And I started to realize that even in the mess, even in the thick, even in like the on the worst of the worst days, there were flecks of gold that were just sitting there that happened and that I actually witnessed that I couldn't see in the moment, but I could see later. So it became just this magical tool that I just want to scream from the rooftops and tell everyone about because we all have access to this. We all are documenting these moments, and we can use these tools to help us get through even the hardest days.

SPEAKER_00

I love when you talk about the flex of gold because I think it's important now, you know, to I don't want to say train your brain, but there's a lot of times, especially as a content creator, my husband will say, This is this is great content. You know, where's your camera? Get your camera out. And I I feel like I know now enough about photography and about, you know, just my kids' day-to-day life that there are moments where I can say, you know what, now I just I just can be present. I can be present in this moment. And there are moments where I say, okay, I I can see it, I can visualize it. And it's helped me to train my eye and just train my overall presence and awareness is as to what, you know, what I can document and what are the moments where I'm just like, no, you know what, I'm just enjoying this with my heart and my and my soul. And I think that this idea of focusing on the flex of gold kind of leans towards that. So, what would you say to parents to help them train their brains to start noticing these moments more often?

SPEAKER_01

It's an awesome way to reframe this because basically, I think what's happened over the years of doing this so much is that you learn what you're not hearting, like what didn't matter so much, like all of the nitty-gritty, and you start to see that like sometimes you getting involved, especially as our kids get older, like when you run out and they are making a mess in the driveway and they're doing something that you're like, oh, I want to document this because this is funny. But like also they see you and they're like, oh, should I be doing this? Should we change? And they like are a lot more aware now. Like you start to realize that it changes the dynamic, and then suddenly they need you and they come back in and all that stuff. So you start to learn over time that like sometimes it's okay to just step back and soak in that moment for yourself and remember it. Um, I actually have a journal that's called the Flexible Journal. It's from the three and thirty podcast. Rachel Nielsen made it. And it's like a really fun way to document still those moments that happen, but they're like, it's like a one-line a day journal for five years kind of thing. And it's like picking out that one moment that stood out to you during the day. And I've used that to change my mindset sometimes when I'm like, I really wish I could get a picture of this, but I like can't, but I want to remember it. Like I'll just jot a note down in my phone and then write it down later in my journal at night when I'm going through it, which is not always lately. So don't look at my journal, but I do want to get back to that practice. But I it is helpful to like still allow yourself to notice the moments, but not always have to be in them. And you can go back and recreate them sometimes. Like, I think one of the fun things is like even today, or I'll use an example from yesterday. My kids went outside and they're like, We're making a bird feeder for the birds, and they went through the recycling and they like got out like a huge goldfish box and they cut it open and they filled it with like so much bird seed and they stuck a marker in it and like hung it from the like one of our light lights outside. There's bird seed all over the place. Like I wanted to go out and document this whole process the whole time, but I know now I can just go take a picture of that final thing. So you don't always have to take the pictures when the magic is happening. So I remember what happened and I can write the story underneath it. Like I can swipe up, add a caption underneath that picture and write down what happened in it. So it's a quick way to remember it. And that is a hundred percent my flecker gold from yesterday, and it's not something that's been documented yet. So you don't have to do it right in the moment. You can still go back and get it.

SPEAKER_00

Wait a minute. This is I'm mind blown. Hold on. I can take a picture and write something underneath it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So if you even you can go back to your old photos too. So if you open this works, I think this works at Google too. I'm gonna have to go and check that. But I know in an iPhone, if you go into your photos and you click on any photo, if you swipe up on the photo, once you're viewing it, it'll say add a caption. You see that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I see that. So this has like become my new digital journal. I can't even tell you. I've been doing this for how many years. I did not know that that feature existed.

SPEAKER_01

It's my favorite little sneaky thing because what happens in those captions is your everything you write is a search term. So I could write goldfish bird house, like which it's not going to figure out because they cut out most of the box. Like, but because I wrote goldfish bird house, if I go back and search that later and I'm telling someone about the story in six months, that photo photo will pop right up. And it's amazing. It's like a great way to start using the AI and the search terms to help you find all of your photos and still capture those flex of gold and those stories as they're happening when you see them.

SPEAKER_00

That is brilliant. I cannot believe I've been living life in the iPhone age and I never knew this. I mean, there are so many times I'm searching, and of course, I have become that parent now that is, you know, so-and-so did something cute today. Let me show you. And I'm sitting there scrolling, you know, flicking my little finger. Oh, hold on. Let me, let me, I feel I think it was in June of 2023. Hold on. And I just keep thinking to myself, there has got to be a better way. And so one of the things you're doing this month at the time of this recording, it is March, but I feel like this is a process that you can do any point in the year. You are currently doing a memory keeping March. So tell us about that. Give us like a high-level overview of all it is that you're doing for the month of March and how parents can do this throughout the course of the year. Or, you know, pick a season or pick a time to be intentional about keeping these memories and also just smart and efficient ways to store them so we know how to get back to them. Including, I love this tip that you just shared because I am mind-blown. I'm gonna start using that every time I take a picture. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's my favorite way to just capture, especially those MVP ones, is what I call them, like the ones that like stick and there's a story to it. I mean, you don't need it for like, I just made their lunch. Like, you don't need that every day, but like you do need it for some of these bigger moments. So it's a really fun way to find them. But memory keeping March is like actually like my favorite thing I've done in a very long time with Frame of Life. So I realized I'm I've been hosting a podcast for the last three years, and we talk a lot about our memory keeping projects and different ways that we can be strategic and how we can tackle our projects. And what I noticed, even having an online course, which is the no photo organization course where I teach all of this, people will buy it, have it on their computer, and never touch it. And it breaks my heart. So, like I am also guilty of this as a memory keeper, as someone who does this for her full-time job. Like, this is my life. I still don't sit down to do my photo projects. And I scramble every year at the end of the year. I feel guilty. I have all of the same feelings that all of us parents that are trying so hard to capture the moments and document them. I have them too. So I set memory keeping March for myself and I was like, y'all could come, but this is the time that we are going to get intentional about doing a project for March and getting a photo project done. And what we've done is the cool part about March this year is that there's five weeks and it kind of goes really well with um five different steps I love to do for memory keeping. And I'm walking each week all of the people who are inside memory keeping March um through the process. So our first week was how to choose the project, the one project we're gonna focus on just in March. Instead of being like, I want to get my whole camera role organized, I need to make three albums, five family yearbooks from 2022 to today, and the calendar. And then my mom's turning 75. So we need to do something else. Like, so we're sitting down for one project. And everyone that first week, that's all we tackled, was talking about choosing the one project. And everyone came in and I was blown away by how fast everyone knew that. So next time I do this, we might not even need to spend a week because I feel like we all know that one that's burning the high, the hottest in our mind. But the second week, we talked about containing and collecting all of the images that we need for that. So when we do that, we talk about systems you can use on your phone. So creating albums and folders on Apple Photos or Google Photos, or creating folders in your external hard drive, or even getting like a physical bin to put all of your physical photos in. So one of our clients is doing a gallery wall. That's her project for the month. And she wants to use a lot of existing photos she has. And I was like, grab a laundry basket, pull them off the wall, and put them in that basket. And that is your bin for this month. And no one wants to see a bin of photos for that long. So, like, it's a very tangible way to like see it in your house and start to remind yourself every week that we're this is what we're moving forward on. Week three of Memory Keeping March is when we're gonna go through and we're gonna learn how to like pick which pictures matter the most for that project. And like I'm teaching people how to call ruthlessly. So, like how to choose which ones are the good photos, which ones are the bad photos, how to tell a story. And we're gonna categorize what we have once we see what's all on that little bin. And week four, we're gonna start doing something with it. So I'm walking everyone through like my favorite album making software that's that you can use online, and then you can make your own album and then load it. You export everything so you can load it to basically all of the major album printing companies, and then just showing people just how to like physically set down the time. And so each week we spend 20 minutes of a little bit of instruction. Everybody can ask any questions they have, and then we set down 30, 30 to 40 minutes of co-working time where we're like in the room, like all of us keep our cameras on, we play some music in the background and we get to work and we tackle that project for that week, like that task for that week of our project. And our last week is back up um world's back. Backup day is March 31st and it's like it's a photo organizer's dream holiday. It's a real thing. So I didn't know it until now, but like it's the day that you're supposed to go and test all of your backups and back up your current photos. So it's a great reminder, like, because it's past all the holiday crazies, it's past the first round of maybe February break trips. Like, it's a good time to like get in your camera roll, make sure that it's backed up to Google or Amazon or something in the cloud, back up some of them physically, like all of the favorites, like the big, big moments that you had in the year that you really want to remember, get those backed up and then check your external hard drives if you are relying on that. Make sure that you have the cords that you've updated the dongles to connect them and you've gotten new drives to make sure that every, I guess basically every five years, your drives need to be replaced because technology changes, they wear out over time. Um, so it's a good reminder to just check where you're at.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. Okay. I I was looking at one of the emails from Memory Keeping March, and I was blown away at some of the questions that you were sharing that other people had that have been looming and on my mind because I am about seven years behind on creating family albums. And one of the things I know that you teach is helping families decide, you know, like what moments to keep and also storytelling. Because I know that you're big on storytelling, obviously within things like memory keeping March, but also as a photographer, as a brand storyteller, I think that more moms are more moms need to hear that they can learn how to tell a story with their favorite images and create some of these simple, you know, just memory heirloom pieces because our kids are gonna want to see those things one day. You know, we are the generation who had parents that had physical photos. And you know that whenever you have a big family gathering, in some way, shape, or form, those photos pop up. Some people have put them. I've had family members on my husband's side who have put together a slideshow, and everybody loves watching the slideshow at these parties. Or some families might have just a big bowl that they dump the photos in. I love that. One of my best friends, she has a tradition where she dumps out photos into a large bowl and keeps it out during Christmas time. And her kids love to go through those photos. And I think our kids especially, you know, they're they're the subject of a lot of our photos. But how much, how many of those photos are they actually seeing? I am so guilty of that that when we sit down to scroll through my photos on the big screen on our TV, my kids have no idea half the images that I have. And they say, Oh, mom, you know, they're they love going through those pictures and they cherish it. And so I think this is such a great way to get everybody sitting down working on a project. And it reminds me of the recent executive functioning uh podcast episode that you did on Reframed, and it talked about having a group sit down and just setting aside time and doing work together with other people. You know, you can do this virtually. I used to do this when I was in the corporate world. I would have a friend who also was, you know, working out in the field, and she and I would meet for coffee, and we looked, we looked pretty funny probably because we just sat down, we had put our heads down and were working for 30 minutes together on our laptops. But we were together and it just gave you that kind of accountability. So I love that you've put this idea into something like memory keeping because sometimes you just need someone to hold your hand through this. You or you just need someone to say, hey, we're gonna sit down for 30 minutes and we're gonna pump out all of these things that we want to do around this particular project. So I think that's amazing that you've created this resource for people to tackle a project like this that so often gets pushed back on the back burner.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we I I want to do more of it. It's really lighting me up watching people actually move through it. So I've I've been trying this since 2018, like different iterations. One time it was just all email, like it was like every day I would send a new email. Like people made it like two weeks, maybe, like, but nobody finished anything. And then I was like, here's a workshop that we're gonna do online. And it's like they get in and they go really hard, and then it's like they stop. If there's not this like constant accountability that you have to show up and sending it on your calendar, you're not gonna do it. And it's the like I wish there was a way around it, but that's just how it is. Like, if this is a priority for yourselves, you have to put it on your calendar and you have to sit down and do it. Like, and if you need a buddy to do it with, find a friend or come hang out with us. Like, I I think that I'm gonna probably open up another round of this. I just don't, I can't tell if people want to do this in the summer when we're crazy or if this is a fall thing or if this is working great because it's dead of winter and nobody knows where to go. But I'm so open to watching where this iterates too and helping people really set that time to do something with their photos.

SPEAKER_00

I love the idea of it being in March because you've had the holidays. You're sitting on a gold mine of photos from the holidays, from the fall, and now it's time to do something with them. I struggle with getting the yearly family albums done. I actually just sat down the other day because I knew that I was gonna be talking with you, and I think I had just read your um memory keeping March email. But I have a I have an album. I actually bought it on Amazon, but it's customized for our family in monogram to say the Nienberg family, but it's 25 years of just Christmas memories. So each year it's it's the same prompt. I will link it in the show notes. Yes. It's the same prompt, and it says um the year of you know, 2025, where we celebrated, who we gathered with, some Christmas memories, and then memories of the year pass, and then it has a place for your Christmas card. And then I just end up taping some, you know, hard copy photos on the page to remind us of the Christmas season, and it's 25 years worth of Christmases, and that's all this book is. It's two pages, and I love that my kids love to look at it. I bring it out during Christmas time and they look back and see our previous year's Christmas photos, and now my kids can read so they can read what the year was all about. That I pulled that notebook out the other day and I just did the writing. I wrote the memories and I probably spent 15, 20 minutes. I paid, I copied or taped our Christmas card onto it. So I'm probably 95% done because there's a few other pictures I'd like to insert, but I got that done in 25 minutes. And it just reminds me exactly of what you're doing with memory keeping mark, just setting aside the time, just getting it done because I know that my kids are gonna love looking through it next year and we're gonna continue to do it, and it's a beautiful tradition. Um, and it's it's you know, it is important to kind of keep those memories alive and to have something to pass down to our kids. So I love that you're doing this and I should probably join you the next round. I know I would love to have you.

SPEAKER_01

You would it's it's kind of it's really exciting to see the progress move. And honestly, when you're saying this about that album, it just reminds me of that guilt. And I don't know how we do this, but I want to reframe our mom guilt around it's been seven years since we did a family yearbook. Like, who said we have to do family yearbooks? Honestly, like I mean, I wish, I mean, that's how I make my money. I guess I probably say it, but like I haven't done one since 2021 either. Like, and that was because I was paid by a company to make like and it really forced me to do it. Like, but it's really hard to sit down the time to actually do it. And so it's like thinking about ways we make it easier. That you are making a family yearbook by doing that Christmas card and writing down these moments that mattered in that time. So it's a very real thing if you think about different ways to make it simpler. It doesn't have to be this elaborate book that got printed at Shutterfly or got sent to Blurb and was$500 and took you seven months to create. Like it can be as simple as noticing these moments, documenting them and saving them and making sure they're backed up so that when our kids go out and we want to do all this memory keeping and have the time, they're safe and we could do it. And we remember some of the details.

SPEAKER_00

So, speaking of remembering the details and capturing these small moments, I know that you and I both have a unique eye because you, as a prote professional photographer, I as a content creator and doing work on social media. What are some very basic tips that the average mom or dad can do when it comes to capturing a moment in terms of photography? I'm not talking about, you know, a photography course, but what are some very small tweaks and things that parents can be looking out for while they're, let's say, outside, or maybe they're, you know, they're just wanting to capture a moment that they can look back on in their photo albums or even on their digital photo album and see a beautiful picture. That's a great question.

SPEAKER_01

And I think what I'm learning is really fun to notice because basically, if you think about it, I bet I bet when I asked when I say it this way to you, you're gonna realize this. We don't take pictures in every room of our house and we don't take pictures at every time of day, and we don't take pictures all the day. So it's very interesting when you think about that. So my my one piece of advice is to start to notice the rooms in your house that get the best natural light, the times of day that your kids are in those rooms, or set up situations like go dye Easter eggs in the room that has all the windows around it, and you can turn the lights off and it doesn't have like the yellow lights and that from the cans above your head, like that making all the recessed lighting look like crap on your photos. Like turn the lights off, do it during the day, use natural light, get in your windows. Those are like the biggest tips. And then notice your yard. Like I take pictures every like my favorite time is when the sun's setting in the front of our driveway. It just like shoots this beam of light down the driveway and it's just golden hour and it's so beautiful. Same in my backyard. It's just a different, it's the morning light at a different time. So you start to realize that like moments can happen in these times and you just set that up more. Like you're like, that's when I'm gonna take my camera out and go out there or like try to notice what's happening and like you can stage, stage many things, like throw some chalk on the ground at that time and let them go wild, you know, and just be ready.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I notice even in our yard, I can never, I don't take any pictures or content shooting peak in the middle of the day because one, that's just not a very forgiving time of day, but our backyard is full sun. And so everything is just, you know, like washed out. It's very harsh on the facial features. But similar to you, the golden hour, it's like the sun is peeking through our trees at just the right angle. It's like everything that you shoot just looks beautiful, no matter if they're muddy or if it's just them running around or walking, but everything seems to be a little bit more magical during that time of day. And, you know, you talk about reframing. It's like, you know, you can get a really nice shot and still have crap all around you on the floor, right? Like you can get a really nice portrait of your kids next to a window, and you can still have all the muddy boots and all the dirt on the floor, and nobody has to see that. And all you're doing is capturing a beautiful portrait of your child next to some natural lighting. So I think you're right. Natural lighting obviously is always the way to go, but keeping in mind that your house doesn't have to look perfect, your backyard doesn't have to be landscaped and manicured to get some really nice shots and memories of your kids.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And I love focusing on the details, like zoom in on their hands, focus on their feet. Like those are the things that are growing the most. Like what's on their feet? Like the the way their teeth are growing, even like especially when they're younger. Like in perspective, if you show like the height difference that they've had, if they're near some like Cesaw or something you have in your yard that changes that stays the same, but like they're changing next to it. Like using that as a guidepost to get these details and show time and place, it's really a nice way to capture it. And I have a guide that is called my intentional memories um guide that I'm gonna give to all of your listeners that helps you set down some more ways you can get intentional about all of the photos you're gonna take throughout the year. And one of my favorite pages in there is a it's like a two-sided page where you kind of look at your year ahead and you look at your year past, and you go by month and you can go by your camera role to like flip through really fast and see like high level what did you do last year? Like, and noticing all the trips. Like we did a trip in April and May and August, and just write down that very quickly and planning ahead. Like you know, you're going on April break, or you're same thing for summer. Like you have a couple key plans, and you know, like your kids' birthdays are in January and April. Like you can might mark down these milestones that are coming up so that you're aware and you're ready for these moments to have a camera ready and think about what you might want to capture in that time. And I guess my only other final piece of advice when it comes to this is I see this, I actually saw this at Disney, which is my like least favorite place on earth. It's very overwhelming to me. But I notice a lot of people just like walking around documenting every second of everything. And it's like, what are you gonna do with all of that footage? Like, and how can you lean in to knowing you got the moment and letting the rest go? So, like, either it's I I love to do this on any trip I'm on. It's like, I'll bring my big camera and I'll be like, okay, this is I'm gonna get one picture with the family, all the family. I just need one picture for the calendar. That's what I know every year. I have one month every month for 12. I need 12 photos, you know. Like, I just need the one from this trip. So I'll plan it on the best beach day or the best time that we're all gathered as a family, and I'll take the big camera for that. But then I let go of the rest and I'll just I'm not capturing a million pictures. I'm trying to live in that moment and just getting the one and letting go for the rest, you know, and and like you know when you have it. Like I think trust your gut. Learn, go back, and when you start doing these daily delights, you're gonna see the ones that work the best and the times that work the best. So I think that's like my biggest advice.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's great practical advice because the more that you do it and the more that you train your eye to see these things, because I don't have a professional photographer background. I was simply a mom who wanted to start capturing memories of my kids. And just like you said, I love, I love, love, love all of the video footage and photos that I have of their little chubby hands and their little chubby feet. And so if you are a mom of littles, like, oh my goodness, just you know, get a nice zoom in on, get them, get them those nice little sauces. Because oh, those things will be the the pictures that you look back on. And it's almost like when I see a picture, I have one of those skylight calendars that I love so much. Do you have one of those things? I love that too. And it sits on my kitchen countertop and it's almost like it kind of is like gut wrenching because it's like a moment, a photo that we've taken just kind of like punches me in the gut, kind of like takes my breath away because I rem I just remember how little my kids were. And then I get transported back into you know that season of life where I can I can see an image and then I can remember like everything that was happening around that image. What were we doing beforehand, what were we we were doing after that? And I think that's so powerful, especially for for if you've ever lost a loved one, like you have these memories of them, and you it the pictures take you back into your memory and to a different time and you can imagine some of these things. And at times it can be heartbreaking, but also it can be really bittersweet to just have those moments. And so as we're, you know, talking about capturing the the day-to-day with our kids, you start to train your eye and your willpower to take these photos, like you said, you know, so you're not the Disney mom that's taking a million videos and photos nowadays, you know, after years of doing this, and of course, doing this on content creation, you know, I always tell my kids, I'm like, guys, I just need one. Like if I get the one, then I won't take any more pictures for the rest of the day. Like if you just give me this one, then I will take it. And, you know, it's funny because my husband, when I ask him to take a picture, I'll look back in my camera. I have 15 of the same shots. And I'm like, okay, I think I need to train him a little bit on photo composition or just kind of some basics. And I'm like, I just need one. Like, if you give me five, that's great. I don't need more than 10, 15, because then it's just more work for me to have to go through and like call through those photos. But the more that you do it, the more you train your eye, just like you said. And then you can, you know, really create some beautiful memories just from some basic photos that are simple but really, really meaningful. So I love that advice. I think that's great advice. One thing you mentioned in your questionnaire, you have become a fishing mom with your son. And you are leaning into the things that he loves, which I also love. Well, I have a son who's a tree climber. So I'm not tree climbing, but I'm leaning into it as in I'm watching safely from below. But how has following your kids' interest shaped the way your family spends time outside? I know you used the outdoors as a tool to get you through postpartum. I think that is a great, you know, just glimmer. But how are you spending time outside with your kids now? And how is how are your kids' interests shaping the way you spend that time?

SPEAKER_01

I'm trying, like we're we're coming out of the depths of winter, and I can't wait to go fishing now, which I can't believe I'm even saying that because I hate it, like it's gross. Like I don't like to touch worms and like I'm so scared that I'm gonna kill one of these poor little fish when he catches them, like trying to get the hook out. But it's I just notice our energy is so much calmer and happier when we are outside and they are not stuck to their screens. And we're we're coming off of a very long winter with so much snow up here in the Boston area, and they are just like craving this time. And I I noticed even just like this winter, I I would take even in a blizzard, I was like, I'm going outside. Let's go. I'm gonna shovel. And you want to build an igloo? Like, you want me to get in there? Like, man, like, but I'm going. I'm going in. I'm like, how much longer are they? My kids are nine and five. Like, how much longer are they gonna want me to go in an igloo that we're building together with them? And so I bought myself new snow pants that can get over my new mom body, threw myself out there and just like really embracing that time and letting them go as much as they can on their own. But then if they ask me to get out there, I'm really trying to take those moments to set down all the seriousness of everything else that seems so pressing to get out there with them because it it doesn't, they don't want you out there that long. Like it's really quick. And so it's just like just embracing it. And what we, my son, when we're fishing together, like he is so he's he's like literally last year, he was five years old and he's catching huge fish and he's so confident and he's like, look at how I do this, and I know what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna catch a four-pound bass. And he's and then he does because he's wearing his lucky fishing shirt, and you're like, it's just amazing to watch these hang on. It's amazing to watch these humans like grow into their own confidence and see them learn and fail and try again and just be present with them and support them in what really lights them up, that gets them wanting to go.

SPEAKER_00

You know, you never regret going outside when your kids ask you, Mom, can you come outside or mom? I want to show you something. And like you said, all the other stuff can wait. All the other stuff. I know it feels super pressing. And I think that that's something I struggled a lot with is I have laundry to do, I have dinner to get ready, I have to get this email out, I have to do this, I have to do that. And that used to just rob a lot of my joy when my kids were really little. It's because I think I put a lot of this pressure on myself to have it all done. And, you know, my kids didn't care what the house looked like. They just wanted mom to come outside to go look at a worm that they just found or to go check out a, you know, a turtle that they found in the backyard. And so, like you said, really leaning into those invitations. And because you and I both have, you know, young kids right now, there will come a day where they're off in the world without us. And so I have to keep reminding myself, just, you know, lean into it, set everything aside, be more intentional, especially, you know, as someone who works in content creation, about putting the phone down in a way so that I can really be present in the moment. And that might even include putting the phone down, you don't have to capture this moment. There will, like you said, this moment will come again. There will be another cool thing that they want to show you. And I love that you're doing this and helping families to really understand what are the moments worth capturing and what are the moments that you're just are just worth it to be present and to sit in the stillness with your kids when they invite you. And so I think that's that's a huge takeaway from what I hear you talking about and the emails that I'm getting through memory keeping March. And so before we wrap up, I love to ask my guests for an outdoorsy challenge. And it's one small doable action that they can try this week to get outside with their kids. What would your outdoorsy challenge be to listeners?

SPEAKER_01

Hmm. Okay, so this is a good one, and it's a good way to practice. So no matter where you are in whatever season it is, like if it's winter, if it's summer, wherever you are, when you're listening to this, I challenge you to go outside and look around your home and what is happening there right now. Notice what's happening that is only this this season. Like, is your kid learning how to ride a bike with two wheels? Are are the tulips popping up and you're noticing that? Like, go capture one of those details. Try practicing taking a detailed shot of it, a zoomed-out shot, setting the scene of where it is, and just lean in to noticing it and capturing it, and then see which ones are your favorites and highlight those and delete the rest.

SPEAKER_00

I love that. Listeners, your outdoorsy challenge is to go around your home, go outside, notice the details, capture it and heart it, like you said, hard it, heart your favorite picture and then delete the rest. Just forget the rest. I love that advice. Kira, this was such a beautiful reminder that our lives are already so full of meaning and we just have to slow down long enough to notice it. And I love your message that when we start intentionally creating, capturing, and curating our memories, we begin to see our lives differently with more gratitude, more purpose, and more connection. For listeners who want to learn more about Kira's work, you can find her on Instagram at frame of life project. Visit her website at frameoflife.co and check out her podcast, Reframed by Frame of Life. She's also going to insert some resources into the show notes that we talked about in today's episode. Kira, thank you so much for spending time with us on the podcast today.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you so much, Julian. I loved being here and this conversation just lit me right up.

SPEAKER_00

Thanks so much for spending part of your day with me here on the My Outdoors E Mom podcast. If this episode resonated with you, it would mean so much if you followed the show, shared it with a friend, and left a five star review. That's the best way to help more parents discover these conversations and raise kids who love being outside. You can find me over on Instagram at My Outdoors EMO, where I share simple ideas to help kids play outside more every day. Thanks again for listening. Now go open the back door.