In April of last year, after getting home from a lecture at my alma mater, my wife told me that she was pregnant with our first child. At first I screamed, then shock set in for about ten seconds, then I did the math in my head, realizing that nine months from now is still this year. More panic ensued. Then I was overcome with a calm that stayed until the birth of our son Finn Maddox in December.

I think the calm was one part reality setting in and another part from the immense planning and transition involved in getting ready for parenthood. We had both been reading a lot about having a child and we got a lot of advice from friends and family. Part of what I do as a journalist is research, so this was like a new project for me. I read everything I could get my hands on. I ordered countless books – which drove my wife nuts – and researched everything from the best strollers to organic diapers to natural birthing techniques to breastfeeding. You can never fully plan for the transition into parenthood, but you can lay a good foundation.

A good friend and my old boss at the Union-Tribune, Andy Hayt, gave me a great piece of advice. He has a daughter himself. He told me, “Photograph your child everyday. Because they change so fast, you want to document every moment of it.” As I tried to imagine fatherhood, I thought long and hard how I would relate to it as a photojournalist. I knew in my head that I would want to shoot as much as I could, but how would it be to live with my camera. I have never been one of those photographers who shoot constantly and who can interchangeably photograph an assignment and their family in the same breath. You know, those people who sleep with their camera. This all changed on December 16. There I was, holding my wife’s hand and leg, my camera slung over my shoulder, while trying to coach her to breathe into her pain, and trying to hold back my tears as my son was born. My first picture of him is at one minute old, covered in blood and vernix, it is still one of my favorite photos of him. I now sleep with my camera.

I decided to take this opportunity a step further by turning it into a project. My hope is to tell the story of my son’s first year of life in 365 images that encapsulate our family life during this time, which I will make a book for him. As I have been assembling these images over the past few weeks into some sense of coherence, I have come to the realization of just how ordinary they are. Just daily life, in all its mundaneness: Changing diapers, trying to find a moment for a nap, going to the grocery store, going for a walk. But it’s in the ordinary that we all experience that I find the extraordinary.

The other big change that has come with parenthood has been transitioning my work closer to home. During the last two years I had spent about a total of four months at home, and somehow I found time to plan a wedding, finish my degree and get married. I worked on essays in Peru and on the Salton Sea, I spent time wandering through Patagonia and Antarctica, I did an internship in San Diego and I spent a month helping my mom finish building her house in Texas. Time away working on projects, assignments, internships, etc… are all part of a photojournalist’s life. But I missed my wife, and I missed sleeping in my own bed. The birth of our son has been a blessing in many ways. He is the light of our lives and a complete joy to be with. And he is the reason I have am working on finding stories and projects close to home. (As I am learning during my ten-day trip to NYC for LUCEO biannual meetings, any day I spend away feels like an eternity).

So what I hope to explore in this new blog column are the challenges of transitioning into parenthood as a freelance photographer, and more about finding stories in my own backyard. It is an oft-repeated phrase that if you can’t take a good picture in your own backyard, you can’t take one anywhere, but I really believe this is an important fact especially given the decline in the editorial market. With rare exception, magazines just aren’t sending people to far off places anymore. Plus, there are great stories right around us. The key is to find them. Because they are in your backyard, you have the luxury of exploring them over time, for minimal expense and without sacrificing time away from your life. For me that means more time watching my son grow.

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Daryl Peveto is a photographer who lives and works in Southern California.  His column, “My Backyard” appears every other Monday.  He is an Associate Member of LUCEO Images.