I’m not sure how this will read, it was written from my heart, not as an advertisment for me, seriously I’m busy and very happy, but as a heartfelt plea to value your portraits of your children and find a photographer who will create lifelong memories for you. I would spend so much money today to have the pictures of my babies then. Here is the story why. And….I have many photographer friends no matter where you live, if you need help finding someone, talk to me, I will help!
I am working on pictures for my own walls. With all my heart I would love to have the images of my children when they were babies in the mix. I can’t. They don’t match, they don’t ‘fit’ my house and they just look terrible. If I knew now what I knew when my babies were little I would do things very differently.
First, I bought a copywrite release from Olan Mills so I could use pics of Bret and me in with our boys. Here I am, lazy eye and all. I wish it weren’t that way but I can see and with those eyes I get a ‘job’ that has changed my life.
If you think my bangs are beautiful, don’t blame me, blame her. Her with the most amazing hands I’ve ever seen. Her with the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. Her who I love just as much today as when she died of cancer on March 10, 1988. My grandma Bernice Minnie Orend, she cut my bangs ; )
And jeepers, look at her big feet. Had my great-grandma Ella covered up those precious feet I would have no way of knowing what they looked like. Grandma wore a size 10 and you can tell by her feet then that they would be big. And seriously, I’d give my eye teeth for Grandma’s dress and hat. I would use it today for sure. The light in her eyes is AMAZING. The things that are important to me today were important to my great-grandma in 1920 and she didn’t even know it!
Here is my Great Uncle Lester, oh how he used to tease me. Like my grandma, with his wife Libby, their Christmas gifts were usually hand made and the ones that still matter most to me.
This is funny too, I have a backdrop that looks just like this. I used it today and thankfully it was spared of baby explosion ; )
These pictures will go in my own collage walls that I am working on. I really want to mix the old and the new. Even though they were taken over 115 years, I would like them to ‘match’ today. I have many images of my older boys that will fit perfectly but NO baby pictures. None. Why, becuase when my boys were babies I didn’t get it. Well I didn’t get what might be important to me later.
I can’t show you the pics, I don’t own the copywrite but I can tell you when I had my babies photographed I was stupid. I cared about the outfits but almost to a point where I was photographing the outfit and not the child. Who cares about shoes or stupid red socks covering new little toes or Mickey Mouse on the front because it was cute or the crazy G*P outfits that were adorable then but would look terrible on my wall today……… Once I had their pictures, I would just cover up ‘last year’s stupid outfit picture’ with the new picture. I didn’t think for one minute that I might treasure yesterday so much more when it was today. Uggggg.
Sometimes I get crazy but most times I think I am a very simple photographer. I love expression, I LOVE LIGHT, I love eyes, I love toes, and most importantly I love images that will stay in your heart and your walls for much longer than I would have dreamed when I was a new mom.
When I hear all the time that I am creative, maybe in some things but honestly, I want to be like the photographer of 1920. If my pictures last as long as Grandma and Lester’s, I’m doing the right thing for me and most importantly for my clients.
I’ll probably change and add to this and I’m sure my grammar isn’t perfect. My tagline is Still Photography ~ Moving Images. It doesn’t say clothing catalog.
So that lazy eye goes along with my great big heart and goofy spirit and together I hope they make images that I love but that my people will love forever too. Maybe one day, your granddaughter or greatgrandaughter will be blogging (or whatever the new technology is) about how important your images are to them. I hope so.
With a few tears in my eyes…. Love, Amy
