Family Photos - It's not about You

You guys it is incredible to have dear friends as photographers! I mean truly incredible. Not only do you get to spend time with said dear friends while they casually snap some photos, but you get some beautiful images of your family out of the deal. They take the photos and then it's my job to actually DO something with them. 

I still need to do something with them, you know like replace engagement and wedding photos with up to date photos of our family in actual frames!

Anyhow, this selection of images has been sitting in my drafts for MONTHS! I mean truly, I think Ryan's 4 months old in these photos and I know that because Jack's hair is CRAZY and it was crazy up until the middle of April when the grandparents came to visit from Ireland! I look at these photos and think NEVER again will I let his hair get that long. He can do whatever he wants when he's older, but for now, I still have control over that mane, and never again will it be a mane like this one. 

All these photos are courtesy of Lightworks360. We have had the privilege of them capturing various milestones in our lives, none of which I'm just now realizing have had their own blog post. But they first did family photos for us when Jack was about 15 months old and I was just barely pregnant with Ryan, and again when I was 34 weeks pregnant with Ryan, and again for the photos below which I will dub a day in the life with Dad as I can tell by the photos that it was a Thursday, I was in the office and Ryan was in his pjs all day. And most recently they did photos for us when Ryan was about 10 months and Jack was 2 3/4. 

Anyhow, I love photos. Always have and always will. And I actually love having our photos taken because I have a terrible memory and photos help remind me of life's happenings. 

But my husband prefers to be behind the camera rather than in front of it. However, Tim (one part of Lightworks360) wrote this blog post a few months ago - It's not about You. And it has truly transformed Peter's thoughts on photos. He actually quotes Tim's "It's not about you" comment alot now and recognizes the value and the history and the story that a single image can tell. But truly, the photos we take now, aren't about us. "It's about your grandkids getting new insights to how they came to be. It's about capturing and archiving what it's like to be alive today which is like no other day in history. It's about looking back in 10, in 20, in 30 years, showing our kids and grandkids that yeah, you used to be a babe. And that this life of transient fleeting moments is more beautiful than we can begin to realize. Relax. It's not about you. This photo you're taking? It's a gift. Give it with an open heart."

And so I give you these images, with the pjs and the crazy mane and all with an open heart. As this is real life.

Dreams.

I finally posted some pictures on Facebook last night. It took hours to reorder them and post comments, but it was so worth it, and I had to do it. So check them out if you want – Uganda and Malawi.

So much emotion poured forth as I sat in the coffee shop going through all the photos. It was a difficult task having to scour the photos and place the worthy ones in an album for all to see. I kept thinking gosh aren’t they all worthy of album entry? Aren’t all those kids smiles beautiful? How is a girl to choose? Do I have to choose? Of course you have to choose! I mean not EVERYONE wants to see ALL 4,000 of your photos.

I have recently been feeling as though my entire African experience was simply a dream. Perhaps one night I went to sleep and dreamt about Africa, and in my dream Africa came alive and everything seemed so real. The sights, the smells, and the people were all I had hoped for and more, and everything was all I had imagined it would be. And then after a LONG, deep sleep, I woke up reluctantly back in grey, rainy Seattle. Sounds like a beautiful dream huh? However, the reality is that our African experience was REAL, and we not only have less money in our bank account to prove it, but we also have beautiful pictures to serve as visual reminders of our time.

These pictures make the experience that much more real. Just by looking at the pictures the experience is nearly tangible. If I close my eyes tight enough all my senses come alive. I can touch it. I can taste it. I can smell it. I can see it. I can hear it. I can touch the hands of the children. I can taste the nsima. I can smell the red dirt of the land. I can see the beautiful smiles and the bright, beautiful colors. I can hear the sound of the drums and the stomping of the feet upon the earth. And I am reminded once again that my experience was real.

One Uganda Photo.

JUST ONE PHOTO!! That is all I can upload on here because our photos are simply too big and the internet connection is just too darn slow! So this is me and Monica...or so I thought it was until I checked out my Blog post and realized it's just a picture of me. figured it was kind of funny, so I thought I would leave the photo on here.

Ferry Boat Rides.

We went home to my parents house this weekend and decided that instead of getting stuck in traffic for hours we would take a ferry home. Some beautiful photos peter captured with the lens.