The first time I walked into Jon and Karen’s house, I had my iPhone out before we even sat down to eat. Books, instruments, art supplies, and birds everywhere. I’ve known Jon’s mom, Gail, since my first year of teaching, and I’ve photographed Jon’s family plenty of times, always as part of the big extended-family group. Never just the five of them, though, and never in this house.
It was a Sunday when Gail’s daughter Emily and her husband Caleb were in town. My kids and I visited Mapleview Baptist Church in Lakeside, where Jon is the pastor, and afterward Gail picked up Greek food and we all converged at Jon and Karen’s. Karen calls their property a gift from God. Like so many people in San Diego, she never dreamed they’d have room for chickens. God provided, and chickens they have.
Karen was born in Mexico City and has lived in San Diego for over 25 years. She homeschools their three kids: artistic junior higher Lua, musical Elena, and little Silas, the quintessential boy.
The iPhone shots weren’t going to cut it. I wanted my real camera and the time to focus on capturing this magic.
There was one problem: I wasn’t their photographer. I’d met their photographer, Frankie Rose, that very morning at church. When I walked into the family room and saw her portraits hanging HUGE on the walls, I understood exactly why Karen loves her. “Cozy” is the word for Frankie’s style. It looks like it walked right off the screen of Netflix’s new Little House on the Prairie series, which is a long way from my gleaming pink sunsets on Coronado.
So I texted Frankie out of the blue (she must have thought I was nuts) and asked her to collaborate the very next week.
Frankie’s photos and mine are both in this post. Hers have her name in the corner; the rest are mine.
The Schoolroom
We showed up with matching 35mm lenses and got to work. I started indoors while the light was good and covered the schoolroom: Elena on her guitar, Lua painting in a tiny watercolor book, Silas and his LEGOs, the bookshelves and workbooks and all the homeschool paraphernalia. The watercolor shots ended up being some of Karen’s favorites. “Lua is an incredible artist and storyteller,” she shared.
Downstairs, Silas wanted to read a book. I suggested that his squirrelly, all-over-the-place reading might not be how it usually goes. I was wrong. That’s exactly how it goes. Silas enjoys his books upside down, and Karen accommodates, so I let go of the snuggled-on-the-couch shot. Silas and I rolled his little cars back and forth, too, and Karen later called that “the most genuine moment of the session. A boy just being a boy.”
The Flock
Elena made coffee, I met the parakeets and admired the preschool-friendly charcuterie board, and then we headed out to the backyard, where, in Karen’s words, “we run barefoot as we tend to our flock.”
Karen has a great affection for birds, to put it mildly. I asked her for a full accounting of her animals. She gave it to me, but the complete total is intentionally unknown to her husband, so some numbers below have been redacted.
Chickens: [REDACTED] (every one named, plus 5 new chicks)
Quail: 6
Button quail: 5
Parakeets: 2 (Celeste and Rio)
Pheasants: 2
Chukar: 1
Chinchilla: 1 (Lola)
Australian Shepherd: 1 (Diego de la Vega, aka Diego Boy)
Frankie and I captured everything we could.
I got Elena gathering eggs.
Frankie got Silas and Jon on the trampoline.
Chickens were everywhere, so we photographed chickens. Karen says those outdoor shots with the flock bring her “such joy,” and I’m so glad.
Diego got headshots.
Music, Dancing, and Mexicopoly
When it came time for the full family photo, I deferred to Frankie. She posed them close on the hill by the house, interacting with Diego and each other. Karen calls her the “master of lifestyle,” and I loved watching her prompt them with so much confidence. My family portraits usually mean perfect poses and creamy blurred backgrounds, so this looser, deeper depth-of-field style was outside my comfort zone. I stood back, admired, and learned.
We both got shots of Elena up in the tree with a chicken, and I went back to my comfort zone and photographed macadamia nuts (lots of pretty blur). Then we moved to the patio for a family jam session, because the Bones family is nothing if not musical. Elena grabbed her guitar (Karen loves how eager she is to play with her dad), Lua got her ukulele, and Frankie photographed them doing what they’d be doing on any other afternoon.
Next came a dance party in the living room. Frankie shot it from above (brilliant), and I sat on the stairs with my camera braced on the railing, holding my breath through long exposures. After that we did more family shots with Frankie: Jon and Karen on the front porch (photobombed by Diego and Silas), and a game of frisbee with Elena and Diego. Frankie headed home to her own three littles, and I went back inside for one last bit of fun: a board game called Mexicopoly.
Why They Homeschool, in Karen’s Words
“I had never considered homeschooling as a lifestyle for our family. It was a gradual heart change for me as a wife and mother. … As my children began to crawl, walk and show their personalities, something inside me began to change. I came to realize that mothers are teachers. … Eleven years later, here we are! We are not ‘surviving’ the homeschool journey; we are joyfully living it.”
“Our intention has been to allow our children to be children a little while longer. We allow rabbit trails in our everyday journey.”
“Ultimately, we want to raise our children in a way that honors our Creator and to leave a family-oriented legacy that makes others want to do the same.”
My own kids are almost grown, and I know firsthand how fast those years go. Karen admits that teaching kids from preschool through middle school leaves her a little tired some days. Looking at her life from the outside, I felt real urgency to photograph it now, before Silas can read his own books. Before Lua and Elena are another inch taller. Before the guitar stops being new in Elena’s hands and Mexicopoly isn’t fresh anymore.
What Karen hoped for was “warmth and joy,” along with some real homeschool days and “our love for the place we call home.” As she put it, “I will always greet with a hug, an open door and a smile on busy days or lazy ones.”
About Frankie
Frankie shot her first wedding in 2010, while she was still in high school, and she’s been photographing full-time since 2017. She’s married to her middle school crush, and they’re raising three little girls. She describes herself as a “wedding, couples and family photographer for those who need more realness in their life,” and that’s what I watched her bring to the Bones family: no stiff poses, just people being themselves. Her fall minis are already booked, but she has limited spots for sessions in 2026. You can see her work at frankierosephotos.com.
Watching her work taught me a lot, and she shared a few tips for anyone thinking about an in-home family session:
- Plan one to three activities. Do them as a whole family or one-on-one with a child: games, cooking, reading, throwing a ball, riding bikes.
- Don’t clean the whole house. Decluttering the rooms with the best light is all you need to do.
- Wear clothes you actually wear, in colors that go with your home. A relaxed hairstyle gives your photos a cozy feel. Keep your hair out of your face, because you don’t want to be fussing with it, and we want to see you.
- Tell your photographer your ideas. If something is unique or special to your family, say so, and they’ll find ways to work it into your images.
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