You ask me why I do this?

a good question;  I'll grant you that.  Sometimes it's good to sit back, have a look and wonder if what you spend your time on is worth it.

I'm delighted to respond with these . . .

This is why I do it.  This is why I stopped a much more conventional, predictable career to juggle a somewhat 'iffy' one.  This is why I sometimes stare at my computer screen for hours, tweaking one little  spot on a photograph.  This is why I adore shooting folks with a camera, why I'll carry the thing around 'til my right hand feels like it might break off!  This is why I press the shutter a million times for every one image that feels perfect and why I believe that there is magic in still photography.

When I sit down and begin to upload shots from my card into my computer, I know it's what I should be doing.  When the pictures begin to reel across my screen as sneak peeks of moments captured in time, I remember it's the right thing.

I get to capture folks I care about, with folks they care about, doing what they love.  Often what they love is simply touching, sitting with, holding hands, laughing with the ones they love most.  There's not enough of that in the world, to be sure.  Capturing those moments - forever - that is good stuff.  Real good stuff.  I'm thankful.

You won't have to see many of these images to see the bond between these two special people.  I love catching the moments when they look into each other's eyes or slip into holding hands or laugh so hard that their eyes shut.  Good stuff.

I've said it before, friends, and I'm sure I'll say many times again . . . this is the good stuff and I get to be part of preserving it.  

Thanks for trusting me with your memories, friends, and thanks be to God for cool people and happy families.

You'll find the entire session at Mollie and Ben

Sparkling Eyes in Chimney Park

I love kids.

I love photography.

Sometimes I get a bit excited when I meet new kid friends, and I loudly remark about their sneaky smile or their twinkling eyes.  I don't mean to act like a crazy woman, but I tend to jump and see them as my camera might.  I get a little fired up about this stuff!

I see a set of sparkling eyes and I'm ready to start shooting!  That was certainly the case when I met these two cuties, the grandchildren of dear friends.  Though it was stifling hot on the day we got together, there seemed to be a bit of magic in the park.  These two were the perfect little adventurers, and I loved following their fun, sharing their enthusiasm and capturing their love of the beautiful surroundings.  What fun!

 

Good times . . .

List 4 - I miss . . .

I thought about a funny list for today, but somehow memories kept flowing into my awareness this week. They haven't been sad memories; just memories and they've had me thinking.  Sometimes I tend to get hung up on things (not meaning objects exactly, more like experiences) that I had that my children will not get to have.  Sometimes I go on and on about that - just ask my children.  More than once, one of them has tried (unsuccessfully) to explain to me that they don't miss the 'things' I'm talking about and they are just fine.  But I MISS THEM for them, I try to explain.  That's usually unsuccessful, too.

So, today's list is a few things I miss.  As with all of the Friday lists, this is not complete, there is no particular order and I reserve the right to add to, take away or amend items at any time.  Check out my list and then make your own.  You could even use some time this weekend to bore your children or some friends with your list.  I'm hoping to use mine for a couple of pleasant day dreams (and then I'll go over it again with my kids).

In my home growing up, there was a gallery of family pictures on the landing at the top of the stairs.  In the middle of all of the framed photographs was a small plaque that read, "While giving our kids the things we had not, let's not forget to give them the things we did have."  I didn't get that.  Now I do.

THINGS I MISS:

1. Screen doors on houses (that are missing the paint right around the handle) and squeak a little bit and make a loud bang when they are let go.
2. Cabooses.  Apparently they held no real importance, but they meant a lot to me.  They helped make sense of things and helped us all know that things were in order.
3. Footies with balls on the back and white Adidas with royal blue stripes.
4. Eating fruit at the 'right' times.  I liked it when it was special to eat a watermelon, a peach or a tomato and you had to eat them when they were grown.  I know in my heart that I haven't tasted as good a piece of fruit in my adulthood as I tasted in my childhood.  It has been suggested that perhaps I am remembering it with fondness, recalling other feelings that went along with the eating of the fruit.  No way - they tasted better.  I hate to sound like Andy Rooney, but I'm just right about this.
5. The little corner booths in the front of Pizza Huts.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, my thoughts are with you.  I'm sorry, but you haven't truly lived.  I can think of nothing that feels quite like getting to the Pizza Hut and realizing that one of the two booths was  open and you and your sister were going to get it - nothing.  There wasn't a ton of wiggle room, but the pizza definitely tasted better in that spot.  It did.
6. Strumming a tennis racket and singing along, while performing a rousing rendition of "Crazy Horses" by the Osmond Brothers.  Guitar Hero?  Whatever.
7. Going to people's houses and looking up on top of their refrigerator and seeing that shiny cool Charles Chips tin.  What happened to those?
8. Those nice men (usually there was one in each church or sitting by the door at a gas station) who gave you a nickel or a dime or a quarter.  I think some of them gave away a piece of hard candy. They were nice and said, "Here, get you something nice with this."  Somehow, they weren't creepy and everybody loved them.  They were always prepared; and lots of times, you could hear the coins jingling when they reached into the pocket.  Some of them had side talents to go along with the gift, like talking like a duck or pulling the coin out of your ear or repeating long tongue twisters.
9. The slide at "Wheeler Park" in Douglas, Georgia (where my grandparents lived).  It was at least five million four thousand two hundred and thirty six feet high and was undoubtedly the coolest piece of play equipment ever invented.  I count myself among the few, the proud, the privileged ones that got to spend afternoons on that skyscraping edifice before sensibility came into play.  If there was a slide like that today, I'm afraid I would see children harnessed to their mothers and being brought down slowly, one child per two minute period.  Never will there be a cooler thing.  If I knew where that slide was, I believe I'd buy it and put it in my yard as art.  And if it has been melted down for the metal, I hope I never find out about it.
10. Walking home from school.  I did not walk home from school uphill both ways in the snow.  I did not carry a tuba.  I just headed out of the back of Gaines School, loitered a bit on the playground, met with other kids, cut through the woods that went from the road behind the school to our neighborhood and meandered along home.  Ponderosa Drive was a long, winding hill and what started as a loose gang of twenty or so kids, eventually wound down to just a few.  Sometimes we laughed and talked.  Sometimes one person was mad at another.  One time we saw a dog get hit in front of the Tumlin's and helped wait with the injured dog until a vet arrived. Sometimes we might stop at someone else's house to look at something or have a snack or watch tv and sometimes we might just walk straight home.  No parents were involved.  No worried grown ups watched us from behind trees; we just walked along.  We were learning about what to do on our own.  I guess we must have had to hurry some times, but I can't remember that.  It all seemed kind of slow.  I'm thankful, and I wish my kids got to do it, too.