I want to take a moment and get real with you about family photos. This is a subject near and dear to my heart and one that I have through about a lot lately. Because I grew up as an only child with a photo happy mother- and grandmother, I now have PILES of photos from my childhood. I am talking in the hundreds (and it wouldn't surprise me if that number was actually in the thousands!). I have slowly weeded through and compiled those photos into albums that I can easily store and look at when I am feeling nostalgic. When my mom passed away, I was 11 years old. I became extremely attached to the photos I already had of her and of us. Since then, the idea of keeping memories alive through photography just seemed to resonate with me. I not only began photographing everything, but I also scrapbooked the majority of my photos, and still have those scrapbooks from high school and college years that I love getting to look back on from time to time. Here is the tough truth though, I wish I had more photos of me and my mom together. We focus so much on taking photos of our children and yes, they are great for sharing with family and looking back on, but be real with yourself... if something were to happen to you, do you think your children will want the thousands of photos of them in the bathtub, eating cake and learning to walk? No. They will want YOU to be in those photos. My mother was always the one with the camera, this means that I have plenty of photos of me and my dad, but very few of her. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the photos that I DO have of my mother and of use together as I grew up, but it made me think about how people approach photography these days. We take all of these photos on our phones, only to forget to back them up and then one day our phone takes a swim in the lake and those photos are lost forever. We take hundreds or thousands of photos of our children but do we take enough of our families as a whole? Do you always find yourself with the camera in your hand? Maybe it is time for YOU to get in front of the camera for a change. I had the privilege and honor a few years ago to take family photos for a friend. They ended up asking if their son's grandmother wanted to come to the shoot and I got photos of her and her grandson as well as a few photos of her. A few months ago, she passed away. I was contacted by our friend, thanking me so much for taking the time to take those photos, as they were the best (and the last) photos that they had of her and her grandson before she passed away. It is in moments like this that I feel that deep love and connection with photography and the way that it can keep our loved ones memories alive and with us for years and generations after they are gone. Photographing the adventures, the precious moments and the candid shots that capture exactly the personalities of our loved ones is so very important and we don't usually realize that until it is too late. We want to remember our loved ones as they were at their prime, in all their happy, laughing, silly glory!
That is why I am a photographer. That is why I do what I do. THAT is why I would love the chance to work with you.
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