Portraits

I got this seemingly great idea for family portraits about 6 months ago or so, and haven't made any moves as far as realizing the idea concretely, but maybe if I outline it first with words, it will give me incentive to put my ass in gear...
I caught a glimpse of this image in the back of one of our fancy magazines, it must have been an ad for something, but I can't find it now, of course. It just looked at a glance like it was a group of people sitting together, but with their things, their belongings I guess, sort of spilling out around them, like the items were a volcano that was spewing the people up and out... that sort of sounds strange, but I liked the idea of including more than just images of people in portraits, because there are so many other things that make up our identities, etc.
I also thought I saw someone sort of hovering in the background, like someone who wasn't supposed to be there, and that spun me into another idea, that what if people's... um, I don't want to say "ghosts", but the uh, spirits, and ideas and influences and ALL that they carry around with them that mean something to them, that they identify with, what if all those things, those images, those people were included in a portrait of someone? Great, right?
I have been meaning to do a portrait of my family in this way, but have gotten distracted by the idea of getting our totem images as I see them as a tattoo first, so there's where all my particular family's research into this idea has gone, but I took a photo of my husband last night, and I think that this photo will spur me to pursue this idea... I'll post it when I get it up and on the computer, but for now, just wanted to purge this all out...