When children are first born, their parents instantly become Ansel Adams.

If you doubt that, then make a visit to a home where a newborn recently joined the cartoon lineup on the back of the family SUV.

You'll find yourself on the sofa with a large photo album on your lap while one parent or the other narrates non-stop.

"This is BoBo on Friday at 7:21. And here he is at 7:23. See how much his fingernails have grown? And here he is at 7:27. Oh, and this is BoBo making his second doodie of the day..."
Parents continue to take endless photographs at every occasion...first mud pie, first day of school, first temper tantrum, and just about every event that crosses their path in the first five years.

Then the snapshotting tapers off as the kid continues through school.

By the time the youngster graduates, it's a good thing that schools hire professional photographers for the senior portraits, or the high school yearbooks would be filled with blank squares.

It only gets worse as life goes on.

Once we're adults, we rarely have photos of ourselves, except for that embarrassing picture at the company Christmas party where we're caught French kissing a fax machine, or the occasional appearance on "America's Most Wanted."

It seems the older we get, the fewer photos we star in.

Each week, I see the sad result of this portrait paucity.

Often, obituaries cross my computer screen that include the most recent photo of the deceased in his Army Air Corps uniform.

(For those keeping score, the Army Air Corps went out of business in 1941, eventually replaced in 1947 by the U.S. Air Force.)

Sometimes the photos submitted are cracked and faded.

Other times, they're blurry action shots of grandpa hugging some unidentified family member.

And every once in a while we get a photo in which you can tell the fax machine was Photoshopped out.

It's heartbreaking to realize that another of our loved ones died unexpectedly, before that elusive family portrait they'd been promised for years actually made it into the appointment book.

And believe me, nobody really wants to be immortalized for eternity in orange checkered bell bottom pants (evidence that the deceased was either an avid golfer, or lived through the 1970's).

Therefore, I'm going to make a recommendation that I hope catches on.

Today is Thanksgiving, when a lot of families come together for their once-a-year assault on the carcass of dead and plucked fowl.

I urge everyone to use this day to get photos of every person who shows up for dinner.

And not just the traditional blackmail shots of Uncle Ernie spilling cranberry sauce down the front of his white shirt.

Get individual pictures that don't include protruding tongues, crossed eyes, or scrunched up noses.

Obviously, I recommend that you take these pictures early in the day's proceedings, before Aunt Erma gets too deep into that bottle of holiday wine, and before cousin Ted and cousin Frank begin duking it out on the front lawn because cousin Ted continues to insist that the Cowboys suck and the Detroit Lions are the "best team in the NFL, they just caught some bad breaks."

Don't let it creep you out that the photos you're taking might be used sometime in the coming year as part of a loved one's obituary.

Instead, revel in the fact that you're capturing them at a moment of joy and family togetherness, with a glow that will come through for eternity.

You'll be thankful that you did.