Don’t these four look like perfect angels!? This is what I love (and have missed) about blogging. Something about looking through pictures that were captured in the middle of chaos helps me to see the beauty that I missed while trying to navigate all the commotion of the day. We had a fantastic Easter, but only now, as I’m going through these images and seeing all this joy, the smiles, the sheer glee, do I realize just how happy these kids are, just how great life is, just how many things there are to be glad about. 
I wrote a lot more about the therapeutic value of photographs back here. One day maybe I’ll merge my social work and my photography work together to try to help others step back and see the beauty in the every day. Life keeps teaching me how powerful images can be in helping us see what is real. This is what makes me love photography so much. There’s something renewing about captured moments, that little hand clinging to his sisters neck, that loving look at his squealing sister, that centered-sort-of-self-conscious gaze right into the camera, the blur of clinging arms. 
When I freeze these guys with my camera I can watch them here on my screen, suspended in time, where I have the bandwidth and perspective to see how big they’re getting but still how small they are. How hard they’re trying. How well they’re doing. And my heart wells up with love for them. It’s the same love I feel for them when I steal a sleepy second to watch them slumber before I drop into bed. 
For a second I feel the urge to freeze them here in these photos, in this moment in time forever. But this is followed closely by a spurting desire to unfreeze the photo, to see them burst back into action, to watch with this same perspective as they grow and learn and change and become. 
And it helps me realize how much better I want to capture these same kind of images in my mind and heart without my eye behind a camera lens. I want to snap these pictures with my soul, with my hands free and ready to draw them in. 
Picture perfect means something new to me now, as a mother. It’s a reminder that perfection comes in small little moments, made perfect by our ability to be fully there, present, drawing it all in.
that first photo; perfect!
ReplyDeleteI love your insights here. I get so stressed about taking pictures of my kids. The moment the camera comes out the precious moment I wanted to capture is gone. I've also thought about capturing the moment in my soul without any devices in front of my face. But I just hate the idea of ever forgetting some of the moments that are happening.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thanks again for your beautiful thoughts.
you are the coolest ever!!!!!!!!!
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