Keifer's Mother's Day shoot

Keifer wanted one good photo with her three girls. That was it. 'Just one,' she texted. 'For my mom. For Mother's Day.' I told her we'd do better than one. We met an hour before sunset at a pullout under the Bookcliffs, the kind of Colorado mesa that turns peach and then gold and then quiet within about forty minutes.

Denim, wildflower print, and boots

She'd planned the wardrobe herself — a teal denim vest, a long wildflower-print skirt, the girls in soft cream and blush, everybody in boots. It wasn't matchy. It was a family, dressed like a family that knows each other. The kind of styling I always tell mamas to lean into: one tone, lots of texture, nothing brand new.

We started with the formal-ish frame, because that's what Mother's Day needs — all four of them lined up, the mesa rising behind them, Keifer's hand resting on her oldest's shoulder. She kept apologizing for the youngest's hair. Her youngest's hair was perfect.

Then the girls broke

About ten minutes in, the middle daughter said something I didn't catch and Keifer threw her head back laughing — the real, surprised-by-it laugh — and her oldest fell into her shoulder, and the youngest ducked under her arm, and the whole shape of the photo changed. That's the cover frame. I didn't pose a single thing about it.

Three girls and a mom is its own kind of weather system. You can't direct it. You can only set up where the light is good and wait.

The running game

I asked the girls to walk away from their mom and then run back. They did it three times. Each time Keifer's face did the same thing — that bracing, then opening, then laughing as they crashed into her. The youngest got there first every time. The oldest pretended she didn't care about winning. She cared.

A circle of boots

At some point I asked everyone to stand close in a tight circle so I could shoot down at their boots — a wildflower skirt, two pairs of teal jeans, a polka-dot pant, four pairs of well-loved boots on dry Colorado grass. Keifer almost cried at that one when she saw the gallery. 'That's us,' she wrote. 'That's the whole thing.'

Down by the river

We ended near the canal as the light went rose. Just the four of them on a dirt path, arms around each other, the mesa softening into shadow. Keifer's oldest leaned her head against her mom's. Her middle smiled the kind of smile she usually doesn't give the camera. Her youngest tucked under her mom's arm like she belonged there, because she does.

Keifer sent the cover photo to her own mom that night. Her mom wrote back: 'You look so happy. You look like all of them.' That's the whole reason we do these sessions before Mother's Day. Not for the post. For the people who raised us.