Why taking a picture of my son
every day is important to me

3rd May 2011

Jeni Entwistle is mum to two and half year old Ben. She's photographed hundreds of his earliest moments and shared them online. In her own words...

I've always loved taking photographs. Both my parents are photographers, and I've had a camera of some sort since I was a little girl. My earliest pictures were the same kind of thing as my pictures are now: recording life. Pictures of birthday presents, of school trips, anything that I could use to help me remember what we'd done, where we'd been.

And because mum and dad were taking pictures too it was entirely normal. I suppose one big reason I love taking pictures is because my memory is so bad: I remember things from my childhood because of the pictures taken.

I think that's why it's so important to me to capture all these little moments of Ben's life. I'm not sure if I will keep on recording his life on a daily basis, but certainly now that the habit has been formed it is easy enough to get the camera out. That said, I think my mother-in-law will complain if she is denied her daily Ben-fix on Blipfoto. She complains when I post pictures of raspberries or cakes!

My mum started investigating her family tree a few years ago and when she digs up treasure troves of old photographs and diaries and letters they're just incredible to look through. I like to think that perhaps one day my photographs and journal entries will be memories that Ben and his children and children's children can treasure.

Family life is busy. Steve, my husband, works weekdays, and I'm at home with Ben. As well as church on Sundays we go to a couple of toddler groups and swimming every week, and we get to socialise that way quite a lot.

It's difficult living so far away from our parents, but it does mean we have an extra motivation for taking lots of pictures. I suspect that my main reason for taking at least one picture every single day is because of the addictive nature of Blipfoto.

Moments captured of Ben are a bonus (especially with a boy who wants to see the picture before it's been taken), and when I get to take lots of pictures it's an even bigger bonus.

One day I will find time to go out and take landscapes, and flowers, and sunsets again. But for now, my life is pretty much all about being 'mum' and that's what my pictures represent.