If only I had just one more..

Sometimes I think being in the photography business has made me much more aware of the importance of photos. Not from a business standpoint, but from a personal one. As I look through my personal photo collection from my lifetime, I realize more and more that I do not have enough memories captured of my family.  We put it off. We want to wait to lose another 10 lbs, or we simply can't find the time. Excuses.. that's all it really is.  We can make the time, and 10 lbs doesn't matter.

During a nasty divorce, my ex hid/kept all of the photos of my children. It was a malicious attack on me because he knew how much I cherished those, and he made sure I couldn't get a single one by telling the court that I had already taken them, when I hadn't.  He not only took prints, but he took negatives and even my computer and camera to make sure I didn't have any digital images either. Can you imagine not having any photos of your children from birth through 8-12 years? (the ages of my children at the time of the divorce). Not only am I missing important photos from my children's lives, but I look at my parents who are getting older, and I think of my grandparents who are no longer with us.. and I don't have nearly enough photos of any of them. The ones I do have are blurred, some are from the orange 70's film era, many are out of focus and you know what?  Each and every one is priceless.

Photos are important.  What you look like doesn't really matter once you look at the bigger picture (pardon the pun).  If you knew you were going to lose a loved one tomorrow, or next week.. wouldn't you like to have just one more photo with them? Would it matter what they looked like? If they wore make up, or had their hair a certain way?  No.. not really. Those aren't the things that matter. You'd want to capture them forever so you could hold onto their memory a little easier.

I have decided to start following my own advice.  I'm very uncomfortable in front of the camera and I rarely ever see a photo of me that I like, but it's really not about how I look.  It's about my kids.. and their kids.. the ones who will one day look back like I do, and wish they had just one more photo.

So today,  I set my camera up and handed it to my husband.. and lined my children up with me in front of the partly decorated Christmas tree. My hair is a fuzzy mess, I don't have any makeup on, and I'm wearing my pjs.  And I will shamefully admit that this is the first photo I've taken with them in years and I will not allow this much time to pass again. 

So take photos.. but more importantly, be in the photos.  Hire a photographer, or use your point and shoot camera and the timer to do it yourself.  Just take pictures, either way. No one will care if you aren't looking like a model. Because all in all..it's about family and those priceless memories.